Run
by LadyJanelly
Summary: Drizzt ends up in a world not his own. Can he get home? Will he want to? Written because I thought he deserved something sweet. SLASH, violence, etc. COMPLETE
1. 1

A/N: Drizzt and co. are not mine. Everyone you've never heard of, and the places they inhabit are.  
  
Warning: Slash and implied rape, read at your own risk.  
  
The sounds of the sea woke him, the surf pounding at the shore, gulls screaming at each other in the air above. Drizzt lifted his head, the harsh sun stinging his sensitive eyes. A beach. He didn't remember being anywhere near the ocean.  
  
Drizzt pushed himself up off of the white sand, wincing at the pain in his head. A fight. He remembered that. A wizard. A flash. For a moment he wondered if he was dead, but he couldn't imagine an afterlife that smelled faintly of dead fish.  
  
He stopped and did a quick check of his equipment. Twinkle rested in it's sheath at his left hip. The one at his right was empty. He checked the pouch that guenhyvar's statue usually rested in. She was there, safe and secure. He had a cloak and everything he could remember wearing, but no other supplies.  
  
He licked his lips, looking both ways down the shore. Down one way he could see the silhouette of a walled city. Down the other, nothing but the beach, eventually turning to a cliff. Beyond the beach was forested land.  
  
If he had his choice, Drizzt probably would have taken the forest, but he needed to know where he was, needed to know how far from Icewind dale. Pulling up his hood, he headed for the city.  
  
The city was like many he had seen before, but different. The wall was in a sad state of disrepair, though scores of human slaves were putting new stone into place, under the watchful eyes of whip-wielding overseers. Yes, he thought grimly to himself, very like a city he had seen before.  
  
Nobody challenged him coming in, though he could see checkpoints set up for people going out.  
  
The wharf was a place of organized chaos, ships loading and unloading, carts full of provisions coming to and fro.  
  
He blended in with the flows of people, trying to decide where he should go first for information. He realized two things. First, he was the only non- human that he could see. There were humans big and small, light and dark, but no dwarves. No elves, no halflings. Second, he didn't recognize any of the languages being spoken.  
  
He was still trying to get his bearings and decide if he would be safe taking his hood down, when a shrill scream split the air. A few people turned to look, some even heading towards the alley the scream had come from, but they saw what was going on and then wandered off.  
  
The scream sounded again, panicked, a woman or child, he couldn't tell. Drizzt frowned and headed down the alley, reluctant to be drawn into something he didn't understand, but was unable to allow whatever caused that scream to continue.  
  
He turned the corner, and four men had a small woman surrounded; her back was against one wall of the alley. The men were wearing no uniform, but each one carried a short club at his side or in his hands.  
  
Three of them were laughing and encouraging their friend as he tried to hold her against the wall. He was struggling to put a heavy wooden collar around her neck. She was fighting him though, kicking, scratching and screaming. As Drizzt hesitated, trying to be sure that this situation was as wrong as it looked, the man struggling with his captive finally punched her in the stomach. All fight went out of her and she slumped half to the ground.  
  
"I don't think she wants to go with you." Drizzt said, stepping into sight.  
  
Three of the men turned towards him. They hadn't understood, of course, but the tone in his voice spoke open warning. One shouted something in return, waving Drizzt dismissively away. When Drizzt didn't turn and leave like the other civilians had, he repeated it, angrier this time.  
  
With an inward groan Drizzt stepped forward, drawing his single scimitar. And then they were on him, swinging their short cudgels. He stepped and twisted, striking with the flat of his blade, using his fists and boots and the pommel of his weapon to discourage the attack. The last thing he wanted to do, especially in a strange city, was to kill four men.  
  
Three were down, with only the one with the girl still on his feet, in a matter of moments. That man had turned her to be a shield between himself and Drizzt. From somewhere he had pulled a dagger, and held it at her throat. A man on the ground groaned. They would be back up soon. Drizzt realized that the hood of his cloak had fallen down.  
  
The man with the dagger shouted in a threatening voice.  
  
"I don't understand you." Drizzt told him, bargaining for time. There was movement behind the man, but the girl's cloak and the man's bulk hid whatever it was from Drizzt's vision.  
  
And then the man's eyes were rolling up in his head as he crumpled. A graceful young man was standing where the man had been, his grey eyes bright with the rush of battle, however brief. The girl made a soft squeak and wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him.  
  
The young man stood frozen for a moment, staring at Drizzt. He was...beautiful. Straight black hair hung to his jaw line, his features were too fine for human, too strong for elven. His cheekbones were broad, and high, his chin narrow. The eyes that stared into Drizzt's lavender ones were the purest silver. He was wearing a simple home-spun cloak, but where the cloak didn't cover, the sleekest silks showed through, dyed in bright blues and rich greens.  
  
Drizzt tensed, waiting for that moment when his Drow nature was would dawn on the young man, and he would flinch away in fear or frown in hatred. It never came.  
  
The young man started drawing the girl towards the back of the alley, where it must open somewhere else. He said something to Drizzt, and the tone was neither frightened nor angry.  
  
"I don't understand you." Drizzt said for the second time that day.  
  
The young man frowned and tried what sounded like a different language, and then a third. With a grimace of frustration, he motioned Drizzt to follow them.  
  
"Not that I have many options," Drizzt commented, to himself since nobody else could know what he was saying, and followed, slowing only to pluck the dagger from the unconscious thug's fingers. The young man made a gesture with one hand, and it was easy to translate. Drizzt pulled the hood of his cloak back up to hide his features.  
  
As he turned away, the young man dropped a rock to the pavement. A rock. He had attacked an armed man with a rock.  
  
Drizzt studied the pair as he followed them through twisting turning back alleys. He sometimes doubted the young man even had a plan or destination. The girl's clothes seemed the same mix of rich and poor as the boy's. She kept the homespun cloak tight against her throat with one hand. Looking at them together, they could be twins. Her hair, her eye color, even the cut of her hair, just a little longer than his, and the shape of her face was the same as the young man's.  
  
The way they moved, the way they watched everyone they passed, it was easy to tell that they were running. The young man carried a sack that clanged sometimes when it hit a wall or was jostled too hard. Noble children running from some enemies? Feels like menzoberanzan, Drizzt thought.  
  
Finally the young man led them to a narrow door on yet another back alley. He took a deep breath, looking around, and then tapped out a measured count of knocks and pauses. The door opened quickly and he guided the girl in past the old man who had opened it. He hesitated on the threshold, and turned and offered Drizzt his hand, nodding his head towards the door. Again, it was easy from his body language to figure out what he said, though the words made no sense.  
  
Drizzt took the hand and the young man pulled him inside. He had never touched a man's hand that was so soft; strong, but completely without calluses. In the close quarters he could smell a lingering of masculine perfume on the young man's hair, mingled with the fresh sweat smell of his recent exertions. A shiver of unknown origin went through him.  
  
The room was little more than a closet, and the old man was already gone, along with the boy's clanking bag. The young man closed the door behind them, leaving them in the gloom. The only light came from cracks between the ill-fit planks on the wall.  
  
Weary, the pair sank to the floor. To rest, to wait. Drizzt sank down too, watching as the young man tenderly straightened the girl's hair. And then the boy's silver eyes were meeting his again, sparkling with curiosity. 


	2. 2

A/N: Drizzt and co. are not mine. Everyone you've never heard of, and the places they inhabit are.  
  
Warning: Slash and implied rape, read at your own risk.  
  
Finally, the safe-house, Brionne thought. He'd lost his way and had to back-track a few times, and each time made him fear that the tiny sketch of a map he had was wrong, or that he had not memorized it correctly. He sank to the floor, glad that it was really here. He touched Nala's hair, making sure she was well and felt safe. And then he glanced over to the stranger.  
  
And what a stranger he is, thought Brionne. Even in the dim light, he could see how dark the man's hands were, darker than any skin he had seen. He remembered the white hair, so stark against the black skin, the eyes so bright and full of life, the perfect delicate features.  
  
He smiled softly over at the stranger, trying to open some avenue to friendship. He was rewarded with a glint of white teeth in the shadows. A smile? He gestured over his own head, as if pulling back a hood, and after a moment the stranger complied, baring his head again. Like he had in the alley, the stranger seemed to brace himself, as if preparing for a blow that he would take without flinching.  
  
The man was too beautiful not to admire. A sudden dark vision popped into Brionne's head; this exotic stranger captured, prosecuted for stealing him and Nala from the slave-catchers, sentenced to the arena, or sold to some pleasure-hungry lord. He needed to make this stranger understand the danger he had stepped into, and fast. Brionne didn't mean to trade the freedom of one slave for the imprisonment of another.  
  
"Brionne." He said, touching his own chest. "Nala," he said, indicating her. He raised his eyebrows, gesturing at the stranger.  
  
"Drizzt." The man said, and Brionne smiled.  
  
"Drizzt." Brionne repeated. It was strange name, with the drag of the zz's and the sharp t at the end. He went through his head, trying to find a language that he hadn't already asked about that had sounds like that.  
  
"Do you understand me?" He asked in Marshlander. He tried again in the tongue the western traders spoke, and again in the language of the northern miners. He went through all the dialects of the old empire that he knew, and then into the ancient languages. There wasn't even a flicker of recognition at any of them.  
  
"Drizzt speak?" he asked, using a hand motion to get his point across. Apparently the stranger was smart enough to hear that the languages Brionne had been trying were all different. He went through a similar, though shorter, list. He tried everything from a language that rolled musically like flowing water, to a short harsh tongue, to a language with sharp hard sounds.  
  
At the end, Brionne sighed and shook his head. There was nothing. Nothing at all even familiar.  
  
The old man came in with a loaf of bread and a wheel of cheese. He also handed Brionne a small pouch of coins, money in trade for the objects he had taken from his master's house. The bag was lighter than he had hoped, but heavier than he should have expected. They ate in silence, tearing off pieces of the food and sharing them around.  
  
Nala ate little, less than Brionne would have liked to see her eat, then turned and rested her head on his shoulder, eyes closed.  
  
Brionne grew thoughtful. The man had to come with them. The slave- catchers had seen his face, and it wasn't a face he could hide forever.  
  
"Drizzt?" He finally asked. The man looked up, turning those violet eyes at Brionne. The younger man licked his lips, a conscious signal of his uncertainty. This was a challenge for even his skills with language. "Brionne and Nala are running." He made gestures with his hand. "Will Drizzt run too? Run with us?" he hoped the urgency that he felt came through in his gesture.  
  
*****************************  
  
Drizzt run? The Drow considered. Did he have any reason not to? Part of him knew he should stay near that beach, in case his friends somehow managed to duplicate whatever had happened to him, to come searching for him. On the other hand, he suspected that he had inadvertently made some enemies in the short time he had been here, and might not be able to wait for them close by even if he wanted to.  
  
The young man--Brionne--searched his face. Brionne, who had not been afraid or hate-filled when they met, when he saw the dark-elf features. Brionne, who obviously cared for this girl enough to fight for her, maybe die for her. Brionne, who couldn't have possibly fought off those four of his enemies with a rock.  
  
He was needed. He nodded. "Drizzt run." He said, hoping he was using the right word. "Drizzt, Brionne, Nala."  
  
The boy nodded and seemed relieved. He peeked through the cracks in the wall. It was getting darker outside.  
  
And then they were on the go again, through the city, Drizzt and Nala with their hoods up, Brionne with his down. They walked as if they belonged there, confident and openly, and nobody stopped them in the hour or so it took them to walk through the dusk to what Drizzt thought to be a temple. The statues of seven women graced the archway above the door, and Brionne moved as if he knew where he was going.  
  
A sharp-faced woman met them near the door. She frowned at Drizzt, and for a moment he wondered if his hood wasn't covering all of his features. She said something sharply to Brionne, and held up two fingers.  
  
"Three," Brionne replied, voice firm, holding up the appropriate number of fingers.  
  
She sighed and nodded, leading them through the "church" or whatever it was to a back room. There, clothes waited for Nala and Brionne, to wear under the rough homespun of their cloaks. More peasant garb, grey breeches and a dark long sleeve tunic for Brionne, and a soft wool dress for Nala. Drizzt turned his back while they changed. He could hear Brionne speaking softly to Nala as he helped her with her dress, but she said nothing back. Brionne touched Drizzt's shoulder when they were done, the action startling him. He tried to remember if ever in his life someone he had known for so little a time had touched him in so casual a manner. He couldn't think of one.  
  
Outside a man with a cart full of tarp-covered boxes waited. "Three?" he asked, seeing the trio.  
  
"Three." Brionne told him, this time holding that many coins instead of fingers. The man smirked and said something, then lifted the tarp.  
  
Inside, what looked to be boxes under the tarp was really one large box built with many angles and edges, looking like a stack when it wasn't. A smuggler's vehicle. Built for taking people.  
  
Brionne helped Nala in first, then followed her. His eyes looked back up at Drizzt, silently begging him to come to, to join them in the even tighter confines of the box. To trust the smuggler with his life.  
  
Drizzt glanced at the outside of the box. It didn't seem too sturdy, and it looked like it would be held closed with only a piece of rope.  
  
Disliking the idea but seeing no other way, he climbed in. the smuggler tied the door behind them.  
  
The space inside was tight, probably meant for two but now forced to hold three. Through his chainmail he could feel Brionne's hand pressed against his back. There wasn't enough room to stretch out, so their legs were bent, the fronts of Brionne's knees against the backs of Drizzt's thighs. Drizzt could feel the pounding of his own heart. He felt dizzy, and wondered if there was enough air getting into the box, even though he could feel the wind through the cracks in the slats.  
  
The young man's breath behind him was tense, and afraid as the wagon began to move. His fingers clenched reflexively at the lurching motion.  
  
They rolled up to a checkpoint, and the driver talked companionably with the guards.  
  
Drizzt braced a foot against one of the slats, prepared to smash a figurine- sized hole in it if he had to. Guenhyvar could get them out, and once he was out, he could fight. He tightened a hand over Twinkle's hilt.  
  
There was a murmur and a clink of coins, and the wagon passed through without search. All three occupants in the back breathed a silent sigh of relief.  
  
Half the night later, the driver stopped at a quiet place in the road, opened the door and let them out to stretch stiffly in the cool night air. He gave them a sack of food and bid them on their way. 


	3. 3

A/N: Drizzt and co. are not mine. Everyone you've never heard of, and the places they inhabit are.  
  
Warning: Slash and implied rape, read at your own risk.  
  
My thanks to the people who have sent me reviews. This is my first fanfic and you've been very encouraging. If you have a chance, please drop me 2-3 words about what you liked or didn't like about this story. I would really appreciate it.  
  
Thanks.  
  
*********************  
  
Brionne reached his fingertips towards the leafy canopy above him, feeling every inch of his body stretch. It felt good. The scent of the forest reminded him of his childhood, before he was a possession. The trees were beautiful, dark silhouettes against the glittering starry sky.  
  
He glanced over at his traveling companion; he seemed more at his ease here, head tilted back as if to catch a scent on the breeze. He seemed free, and strong, and if possible, more beautiful. The white of his hair seemed to shimmer in the pale light.  
  
Brionne smiled softly over at him, feeling shy for the first time in almost two decades. The dark-skinned warrior smiled back, just a hint warily at first, then with real warmth.  
  
Nala tugged Brionne's sleeve, breaking the moment. He glanced at her, read her body posture and knew what she needed.  
  
"Drizzt? Wait for us a moment?" he asked, stepping towards the woods. The Fae looked like he would follow, but Brionne stopped him with a gesture.  
  
He helped Nala into the woods, untangling her skirt when a fallen branch grabbed at her. He helped her with everything, like she was a child. He remembered how she had been before, how bright and gentle and kind. A confused girl from the country, forcibly bought from her parents for a reason she didn't understand. Brionne sighed. There was nothing he wouldn't do for her. It was his fault, after all, that she was this way now.  
  
Leading Nala, he stepped back towards the road. The warrior stood there, looking relaxed in the starlight. Brionne smiled, stepping from the treeline...and suddenly saw the lithe black form pacing around the man. Nala made a little squeak, and he stepped in front of her, between her and the beast.  
  
The giant cat yawned and bumped it's head into Drizzt, who reached down to scratch idly at it's ears.  
  
Brionne's panic started to fade just a little.  
  
Drizzt smiled softly over at him. "Brionne, Drizzt, friends." He said, making a hand gesture between them. "Drizzt, Guenhyvar friends." He felt himself relaxing, starting to smile again, when the animal came over to sniff at his fingers. It stared up at him with more-than-animal wisdom. He tried not to shiver, tried not to show fear. After a few moments the cat seemed to grow bored of him and went back over to Drizzt. The two seemed to have an only partially spoken conversation before the cat turned and headed for the woods.  
  
Drizzt smiled at him again, speaking in unknown words. The tone was important though, and Brionne heard what sounded like approval and respect.  
  
Finally Drizzt pointed down the road and asked a question. Brionne nodded and they started walking.  
  
Tomorrow, he told himself, tomorrow I start learning his language.  
  
********************************************  
  
Drizzt followed the young pair, and found a smile on his lips. He liked the young man, he was surprised to realize. He might not be a fighter, but his love for his sister was apparent. He would have braved Guenhyvar for her.  
  
They walked in the dark in silence until Nala began to tire. Brionne looked back at him, then motioned off to the side of the road. Drizzt found them a campsite and they settled in as the sky began to lighten in a small clearing with a stream running through it. The air wasn't cold enough to require a fire. They sat in a circle, eating from Brionne's bag of hard bread.  
  
It was companionable, but Drizzt wished he could talk to them better. There was so much he wanted to know, to ask. Finally, after Nala curled up and fell asleep against Brionne's side, he came up with a question.  
  
"Brionne?" The young man looked up at him, eyes bright with curiosity. He realized the boy was probably as hungry for words as he was. "Nala speaks?" He had heard her make noises, but none that sounded like words. He made the hand gesture that Brionne had used the previous day.  
  
Brionne shook his head. "Nala doesn't speak." He said, sadly. He touched her hair gently, then picked up a small twig off of the forest floor. "Nala was broken." He snapped the twig in half, then pointed at his heart. "Broken."  
  
For a moment Drizzt wondered what his life would have been like if he hadn't been his mother's youngest child, if there had been someone else to protect. Would he have left sooner or not at all?  
  
He sighed and stretched out, trying to find a soft place to rest. Beside Nala, Brionne did the same thing. The glow of the morning sun was just beginning to lighten the horizon when sleep finally took him.  
  
***************************  
  
Drizzt was woken by the sound of a struggle. He came awake all at once, hand going for his weapon, eyes squinting at the morning light. Guenhyvar's back was to him, her posture alert, but the panther wasn't moving. Beyond her, he could see Brionne on the ground, twisting, fighting....nothing.  
  
Confused and concerned he ran over to the young man. His beautiful features were twisted with agony beyond words. Drizzt could tell the pain was hitting him in waves, like the fall of a whip. At every wave, his body would buckle and twist. In between, he would have just a second to take another harsh gasp of air before the agony would return.  
  
Dropping his scimitar, Drizzt moved to the young man's head, desperate to do something, anything to ease his torment. As he lifted Brionne's shoulders in his arms, the silver eyes met his lavender ones, begging him silently for help. Brionne's fingers went for his own throat, desperately clawing. Blood welled up in the shallow scratches.  
  
"No," Drizzt told him, pinning his hands before he could injure himself. He tore open the young man's tunic, suddenly worried that some sort of poisonous snake or insect was attacking him.  
  
What he saw was so much worse than any viper.  
  
Thin lines covered the young man's skin, blacker than any tattoo Drizzt had ever seen, and slightly raised from his skin. It was like the thinnest wire had been fused to his flesh in beautiful and intricate patterns. The design was most dense around Brionne's throat, and just before every pain- filled convulsion of the boy's body, the strands around his throat would turn a glowing red, and then pulse that color down the lines to where they disappeared under his clothing. It was a thing of dark beauty, and it made Drizzt's stomach twist to see it.  
  
And then as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Brionne rested in his arms, panting for breath, covered in sweat. He lay there, too exhausted to move, for long minutes. Drizzt tried to pull his shirt closed, but it was torn beyond repair.  
  
Finally the dark lashes fluttered open, silvery eyes meeting lavender again. "Thank you," he said, and the tone in his voice left no doubt to what the words meant. The after-shadows of pain and sadness lingered in the young man's eyes, but he shed no tear.  
  
Gingerly Drizzt reached out to touch the lines at Brionne's throat. He expected them to burn with heat, but they were only warm to his touch, as the nearby skin was. He tried to calculate the evil that had to go into putting something like this on any sentient being, the effort and cost. He glanced at the younger man's eyes again, questioning.  
  
Brionne licked his lips. "Collar," He said softly. Drizzt touched his chest, in a place with no lines. "Slave," the young man whispered. 


	4. 4

A/N: Drizzt and co. are not mine. Everyone you've never heard of, and the places they inhabit are.  
  
Warning: Slash and implied rape later. Violence, etc, etc. Read at your own risk.  
  
Thanks to everyone who has been reviewing. I really appreciate the encouragement.  
  
******************* With a groan, Brionne sat up and pulled away, giving Drizzt another soft but tired smile and again his words of gratitude. The dark one nodded back, and let him pull away without a hint of resistance.  
  
So gentle, Brionne thought. I would never have guessed when I first saw him fighting the hunters, that he could possibly be so gentle.  
  
They stayed awake then, though the day before had been long, and it had only been a few hours since they had taken their rest.  
  
"Brionne?" Drizzt asked, and followed it with a question in his own tongue. Brionne didn't know the rest of the words. He frowned, puzzled. The Fey hesitated, then motioned for him to follow and led him to the stream. With a twig, he drew lines on a smooth rock with water; small squares with triangles on top, with two close parallel lines going away from them. Drizzt pointed back the way they had come.  
  
Realization dawned. He smiled, intending the warmth in his eyes to reassure the man, to smooth over any discomfort he might be feeling at their awkward communication. It worked. The Fey smiled back and seemed to relax more.  
  
"Ah, the capital, " he said.  
  
Drizzt repeated the word, then pointed at the parallel lines, then at the trail they had left. "Road," Brionne supplied.  
  
Drizzt pointed to his little map again, at the blank space beyond the road, then repeated his first question.  
  
Brionne took the stick, his fingers brushing the dark ones as he did. He drew a line of hills, and a place beyond the road, small groups of houses. "The Free Cities."  
  
Drizzt cocked his head. "I don't understand," he said in his own tongue. Brionne had learned those words at least.  
  
Brionne drew more little groups of houses near the capital. "City, city, city," he said, pointing at the groups. He made a motion like tightening a collar around his slender neck, making it more real with a pained grimace and a hiss of discomfort between his teeth. Then he pointed back at those cities. "Slaves, slaves, slaves," he pointed back to his destination. "No slaves." He took the imaginary collar off of his neck and ground it beneath his heel. "Free. For Nala."  
  
Drizzt nodded slowly, understanding in those violet eyes.  
  
"Drizzt? Where do you come from?" he asked, feeling more free to ask questions now. He pointed at the map, then to the warrior. "Where do you go?"  
  
Drizzt stared at the map and shook his head sadly. His graceful fingers made a helpless gesture.  
  
Nala woke as the sky was fading to the grey of dusk, and they were again on the move.  
  
**************************  
  
Relder stalked the mosaic floors of his villa, walking the darkened corridors. He was too proud to pace a room, yet too restless to stay still. He ran his fingers through shoulder-length steel-gray hair. It had been two nights since he last slept.  
  
He cursed Brionne for leaving, for running away from him, and cursed himself for caring. He had bought the fey-blooded slave only for the purpose of hurting lord Markell, his bitter rival. He'd never been interested in having a male bed-slave before. Still, to take something that Markell had obviously valued so much was worth the hundred common slaves and twenty arena fighters he had finally coerced the man into trading.  
  
When Markell realized what he'd done, what he'd lost, and what he'd given his Brionne to, he'd taken his own life. It had all come together so much better than Relder had even hoped.  
  
It had been two years. Two years of unimaginable pleasures, joys. Of late night discussions and mid-day love-making. Of Brionne's hands and body and mouth on him, but most of all, those eyes.  
  
He wondered if he could live without those eyes.  
  
"M'lord," One of his soldiers interrupted Reldor's thoughts. "The hunter is here, as you requested." The man bowed low, and then stood at attention, waiting for further orders.  
  
"I will meet with her in my office." His voice was crisp, authoritative, used to being obeyed.  
  
The first thing he saw in her as she stalked into the room was her predator's eyes. She was tall but not beautiful. Everything that wasn't useful to her profession had been burned away. Sleek black leathers closely wrapped her lean body. Her long black hair was pulled back from her face and into a row of small tails at the back of her head. The style emphasized the angularity of that face, the sharpness of her cheekbones, and the thin line of her lips.  
  
"You have a hunt for me?" Her voice was soft, but dangerous, with just a hint of a Marshlander accent.  
  
"A slave has run." Reldor told her. "I sent some--inferior--hunters after him, and they came back with tales of a dark-skinned Fey who helped him escape."  
  
The hunter listened, her sharp eyes never looking away. A smile of anticipation began to curl at her lips.  
  
"I want the slave, alive and unmarked. I want his companions, a run-away girl and this 'Fey', alive at least. No one is to know he was missing. I'm sure I can count on your discretion."  
  
"The slave's name?" She asked.  
  
"Brionne. I must have him back."  
  
"Of course, my lord," She said, bowing low.  
  
"When can you begin?"  
  
"Now."  
  
***************************  
  
They stayed off of the roads that night, and into the dawn hours. Once, they heard the baying of dogs behind them, but the ranger helped them to break the trail by walking a mile up a small stream while he made false tracks and dead-end trails with Brionne's cloak.  
  
While he couldn't be with them, he called Guenhyvar to watch over them. He expected her to be tired, after having so recently been on the material plain, but instead it seemed like the usual two days had passed for her. With an internal pang of worry, Drizzt wondered exactly how far this place was from home, and if there really was a way to get there from here.  
  
The runaway pair seemed to make good time, much to his surprise. Their steps were quick and sure on the moonlit paths. Brionne helped Nala constantly, and thought Drizzt could tell the young man was exhausted when he returned to them; he made no complaint by word or action.  
  
Drizzt had the feeling Brionne would never be the first one to ask for a stop if it weren't for Nala. He carried their bag of food all the time, and Nala half the time. His will and determination impressed even the stoic ranger.  
  
**********************  
  
With the hooves of their sturdy horses pounding, the Hunter and her entourage rode out of the city. In her wake she left an old man broken and bleeding in the hidden room behind his shop, and a wagon-driver happily counting the coins he had earned by betraying those who had trusted him.  
  
The Hunter had two competent men behind her; experienced hunters in their own right. Slender grey coursing hounds ran on either side of her horse. When the party was closer to where the wagon driver dropped the runaways off, she would give them the shirt that Relder had produced as a sample of Brionne's scent, and they would search him out. Until then, the lean dogs ran for the simple thrill of running.  
  
She had no doubts of the outcome of this hunt. The Free Cities were many weeks of travel away, and the slaves only had a little more than a day's headstart. The young man had taken the sample of hair that Relder had kept to track him magically. The toy wasn't stupid, at least.  
  
The group would probably stay on foot and kept to the woods, and she would catch them in another day. If they headed for civilization, bought a horse and took the roads, her contacts would get word to her.  
  
This hunt would have been beneath her, if not for the mystery of the Fey. She ran her slender fingers over the hilt of the dagger in her belt. It had been generations since a full-blood Fey had been seen, much less captured. She would see him bound at her feet, or die trying.  
  
********************************** 


	5. 5

Warning: Men will be with men. If you don't like, don't read.  
  
Drizzt and friends aren't mine. Brionne, Nala, and the world they live in is.  
  
Thanks for the feedback, guys. As always, it is appreciated.  
  
***************************  
  
Brionne watched Drizzt as they made their second camp, starting a small fire to dry their feet. Beautiful. For the first time, he began to doubt the wisdom of his plan, of getting Nala to a safe place, and then returning to his master. He knew he would be punished, perhaps killed.  
  
Even that threat was pale in comparison to waiting every day for the rest of his life for the randomly timed pain the collar put him through. Every day, between one dawn and the next, the "collar" would search for it's other part, the gem that controlled it. The gem Brionne's master still owned. Every time it didn't find the gem nearby, it would send it's waves of pain through his body.  
  
At least it's already past for today. Until the next dawn, he thought, still watching the exotic stranger. They had been far apart this day when the collar had searched for the gem. Brionne didn't know if that was a blessing or a curse. The way Drizzt held him through the previous fit had left him confused, unfocused in purpose for the first time since he began planning Nala's escape.  
  
Maybe there was something worth enduring the collar for after all.  
  
****************************  
  
Drizzt struggled to sleep, knowing he was failing miserably. Barely slitting his eyes open against the glare of the sun, he could see Nala, asleep and curled up in her cloak. Brionne's arm was draped around her shoulders, sweetly protective and comforting.  
  
A whisper of longing sighed in his heart. Just to receive a touch. Just to know the feel of another's body against his as they slept. His friends had told him so many times that he deserved it, that he was as worthy of affection as any other man. And yet, aside from a quick comforting pat, or a brief hug from Cattie-brie, he still felt untouchable, even to those closest to him.  
  
There was a flicker of motion behind the fringe of hair shading Brionne's eyes. Drizzt realized with a sinking feeling that the young man was awake, had been awake for a while. And that he had been caught staring.  
  
*********************  
  
Longing. That moment when desire becomes so powerful that it's painful. Brionne knew that emotion, had been trained by his life to recognize it, to use it, to summon it, to manipulate it. He saw longing now, in the Fey's lavender eyes.  
  
And yet all of his skill left him as Drizzt realized he was being watched back. All of his experience told him to capitalize on the situation, to bind this man to him, and through that, to Nala. To bribe him with promises and temptations until they were safely in the Free Cities.  
  
Like a man in a dream, he felt his body moving to his feet. Leaving Nala asleep on the ground, he took a step.  
  
Everything he might have bought had already been given to him.  
  
Drizzt could have already exacted payment from him, demanded it or just taken his pleasure by force. Instead, the only times he had touched Brionne were just in friendship, or in comfort when the collar punished him.  
  
His bare feet were almost silent on the leafy floor of the clearing, yet Drizzt surely felt him coming closer. At the last moment, the dark man sat up and raised his head towards the morning sun, something approaching fear in his lavender eyes.  
  
One chance to do it right, Brionne thought.  
  
"Guenhyvar." Brionne said, gesturing around them in the forest. "She'll watch us, keep us safe."  
  
"Drizzt." He said, pointing at the ground where the fey sat. "Drizzt will stay here, with me."  
  
*********************  
  
He'd had no idea what the graceful young man was thinking when he left his sister and came to stand before him. "Drizzt stay," was all that he understood of the short speech, and then Brionne's fingers were undoing the lacings of Drizzt's outer tunic, pulling it off over his head, and then loosening the buckles of his dwarven-made chainmail.  
  
"What are you doing?" He asked the dark-haired man. His voice sounded awkward and he knew that none of the words he spoke were among those they had exchanged the meanings of.  
  
Brionne didn't even try to understand. He just placed a fingertip on Drizzt's lips, and shushed him gently.  
  
He would have protested more; he knew he should protest more, but such a feeling of calm confidence exuded from the younger man; a certainty he couldn't deny.  
  
With very little effort, Brionne pulled the armor off over his head, leaving him feeling lighter, but more vulnerable. He expected to lose his shirt, boots and breeches in short order, but instead Brionne stepped behind him, going to his knees on the leafy ground.  
  
Strong fingers roamed his back in a slow caress through his shirt, testing his responses, evaluating the tightness of his muscles, the tension of his shoulders. And then those hands started a slow comforting massage, thumbs running up either side of his spine.  
  
There had never been a touch like this in his life. He had known since childhood how much pain his body could experience and still exist. He had known torture, injury, exposure to the elements. He had no idea how much pleasure he could take.  
  
A low groan slipped from his lips, and he cut it off as soon as he heard it, afraid of doing something to break the moment. Brionne spoke gently, reassuringly, and Drizzt sighed and relaxed into the touch again.  
  
He felt Brionne's warm hands slide up under his shirt, felt himself tensing as the soft cotton was pushed up over his head. The dappled sunlight of the clearing fell warmly on his now-bare shoulders. Behind him, Brionne resettled, one knee on either side of Drizzt's hips. He felt himself unexpectedly stirring, his body responding to the kindness it was being shown. He felt a heat in the pit of his stomach, felt fire rise to his cheeks.  
  
A slow finger traced the lash-scars he had acquired in Menzoberanzan. Brionne leaned to one side, reaching and turning Drizzt's chin to face him. Silver eyes searched the dark face as his gentle voice asked a question. The words Drizzt understood were, "Drizzt? Slave?"  
  
And how could he explain that with the few words they shared? That he had been a noble and a slave, that his own family had laid most of the stripes there. "No.." he began, then, "..yes."  
  
He sighed helplessly but Brionne seemed to understand. The pale eyes held a world of sympathy, of understanding, but not an ounce of pity. The young man bowed his head for a moment, lips pressed against the point of Drizzt's shoulder. Then he moved back into his previous position, his fingers returning to the now-bare skin, searching out the returned tensions, every ache and pain.  
  
When he seemed satisfied with his efforts, he reached both arms around the dark litheness of Drizzt's chest, one hand going high to rest over the dark elf's heart, the other low, ending up above the opposite hip. Through the torn fabric of Brionne's shirt, their skin touched, heat growing in that point of bare contact. Brionne just held him like that, his chest pressed against Drizzt's back, face nestled in his hair, for a long time. 


	6. 6

Disclaimer: the characters and places (Drizzt, forgotten realms, etc, etc) that you've read about in books aren't mine. Brionne, Nala, the places they inhabit and the people around them, are.  
  
SLASH WARNING: You don't like, you don't read. Thanks.  
  
Reviewer request: I'm trying to keep Drizzt at least a little in character. Let me know if it's even close? Thanks.  
  
**************************************************  
  
Shaking. Drizzt was shaking in his arms, and Brionne just held him, giving him the time he so obviously needed, giving him warmth and contact. He couldn't tell if the Fey was crying or only trembling, but it didn't matter.  
  
It felt wonderful to be so close to this man, to bring comfort and pleasure because he wanted to, not because it was required of him. He pressed his face to the wild mane of white hair, breathing in the scent of him.  
  
He smelled like the wild forest, like earth and rain. And under those scents, he caught the faint whiff of desire, of arousal.  
  
Brionne moved the lower of his two hands, a slow firm pressure against Drizzt's stomach. He was rewarded with a gasp. Drizzt squirmed slightly in his arms, a desire he couldn't express in words clearly stated in his motions. With tender slowness, Brionne caressed the firm expanse of his stomach, his sides, his chest.  
  
Again and again, Drizzt protested with his foreign words, half-hearted and obviously torn, and repeatedly Brionne soothed him with gentle sounds, and less gentle caresses. Gasping, the fey surrendered to the hands on his skin. His head tipped back, resting on Brionne's shoulder, their cheeks almost touching.  
  
I would never have considered myself pale, Brionne thought, watching his hands sliding across the black skin. But then again, I would never have imagined a lover so dark. The word lover sounded odd, even in his head. It was a word he had never used before.  
  
He ran a thumb over the tiny black nub of a nipple, feeling Drizzt jump under him. It was amazing to have such powerful reactions, such deep responses. He ran his short fingernails along the edge of the dark suede breeches, drawing a ragged gasp of pleasure and frustration from his partner.  
  
With great willpower he controlled himself, keeping his touches within the bounds of bearable pleasure. Too much and he knew the Fey would be overwhelmed, wouldn't be able to enjoy what he was feeling. Have I ever been the first for anyone before this? He asked himself.  
  
Skilled fingers unbuckled the sword belt, and then unlaced the breeches. Drizzt shivered in his arms, hungry and afraid at the same time.  
  
Calmly confident, he slid his hand inside the breeches, and felt a tiny spark of relief to find that apparently the Fey were as other men in at least one way. He wrapped his fingers around the base of that shaft, gripping and tugging in slow sure strokes. He was acutely aware how his own body was reacting to this, to the feel of Drizzt's hips between his knees. He sighed silently, his breath brushing over the pointed ear like a caress.  
  
A sharp cry of pleasure slipped from those dark lips, and Brionne laughed softly, delighted in the reaction. He slid his unoccupied hand down the Fey's throat, from chin to collar bone. "Shhh," he whispered, tender mirth in his voice. "Nala sleeps."  
  
He watched Drizzt's sharp white teeth close on his own lower lip, smiling wickedly. He gave the man a moment to contain himself, control himself, and then he licked slowly up the length of that strange pointed ear.  
  
The lean body in his arms twisted and arched with pleasure, pressing hungrily against his hand.  
  
Brionne had never seen anything so beautiful.  
  
*****************  
  
The hunt was everything. She only felt alive in a moment like this, with the wind in her face, ducking and dodging branches as her sturdy horse pushed down narrow trails and through light underbrush, following the hounds as they tracked.  
  
She could hear the hoof-beats of her companions' mounts behind her, the squeak of leather from her saddle. A hawk screamed above her, and she looked to see it diving at some smaller bird. She felt no pang of envy. Soon, she would have her own prey.  
  
She frowned as her horse caught up to the hounds. Desperately searching for the scent, they whined and paced, their noses to the ground. In one smooth motion, she swung out of the saddle, going into a crouch, looking at the ground.  
  
Dog tracks hid those of the two-legged prey she was hunting. Not the small paws of her hounds, but larger prints, more clumsy.  
  
She gritted her teeth. Most likely some scavengers; hunters so unskilled that they just wandered the woods with their dogs, picking up anything with a collar. If they found Brionne first, things could become...complicated.  
  
With a sharp whistle, she called the dogs to her. "Here." She showed them the paw-prints. "Here, this, go get it."  
  
They picked up her dark enthusiasm. To hunt was to live. Without a yip, they disappeared into the underbrush after the new scent.  
  
Remounting her horse, she looked back to the two men following her. "Scavengers. They may have found our prize already, and they've fouled the trail."  
  
The men had ridden with her before. One grinned. One nodded. Obstacles like this never stood long in the Hunter's path.  
  
***************** Drizzt was losing his mind, he was sure of it. The combination of physical and emotional pleasure was overwhelming him, stealing his thoughts, his will. Brionne brought him to the edge, again and again, so close, and then he would pull him back from it, denying him the release he wanted, needed.  
  
How can something be so hot and so cold at the same time? He wondered as Brionne's tongue flicked along the back edge of his ear. The soft breath smelled faintly of mint.  
  
And then both the hand on his shaft and the tongue on his ear were gone for a moment. Startled by the sudden change, he looked over his shoulder just in time to see Brionne lick his own palm. The young man's eyes were silver, and sparkling like the edge of a blade, bright with pleasure and dark with desire. They met Drizzt's in open challenge, daring him to protest...or perhaps surrender, he wasn't sure which.  
  
Almost fierce, his hand returned to Drizzt's shaft, slick and cold. The hand moved like black magic over him, twisting and tugging, rubbing over the top of his shaft like it owned him. Drizzt could see the younger man's jaw clench down against his own desire, could feel Brionne's arousal pressed in against his back.  
  
Brionne's other hand caressed his chest in time to the stroking; soothing, petting kneading his skin.  
  
Drizzt gripped one hand on Brionne's knee, where it squeezed against his hip. The other went up to tangle in the young man's hair. Thick and silken-soft, it was so warm in the afternoon sun.  
  
And then Brionne was whispering into his ear, soft words of encouragement; words that he didn't know yet understood perfectly.  
  
He was brought to the edge again, and this time he wasn't pulled back. This time he was allowed through it, past it, and he was falling, or flying, lost in pleasure so acute it was almost pain. Brionne held him through it all, his arm surprisingly strong around Drizzt's shoulders.  
  
His orgasm spattered across his stomach, startling in it's heat. The stroking hand slowed and finally stopped, just cradling his shaft in those fingers.  
  
Brionne's cheek nuzzled his, and soft lips searched out the curve of his jaw to kiss and nibble at. The gesture was affectionate now, gentle and teasing. He felt his body go limp in the grip of protective arms.  
  
Do men kiss men? He wondered. He reached a tired arm up, around Brionne's head, drawing the young man's lips to his. There was no hint of resistance, and a gentle sigh slipped from those lips as they parted invitingly.  
  
There was the lightest of butterfly-kisses between them. Brionne's tongue darted out to touch his lips, tasting the soft saltiness of them. They explored each other with shy touches, slow caresses. It felt so good to have the young man's fingers tangling in his hair, the way his knees hugged Drizzt's hips.  
  
And then without warning Brionne was pulling away, regret in his eyes as he untangled their bodies and handed Drizzt back his undershirt.  
  
Frowning with confusion, Drizzt put the shirt on, and then slid into the chainmail shirt as Brionne held it for him. Now he understood. This place, this time, was too precarious. Danger was too close to be unarmed and unarmored for long.  
  
Brionne retied the laces of the over-tunic, and Drizzt let him. He watched the pale eyes, waiting for them to meet his, but Brionne never looked up from his task. His fair skin was flushed, color creeping up his jaw to his cheeks. He turned to move back to his feet, to walk away, but Drizzt couldn't let him. He reached out, not catching the young man's arm in his fingers, though he surely could have. Instead he ran his hand down the underside of the sleeve, applying enough pressure for the man to know he was being touched.  
  
Silver eyes met his, finally. "Brionne. Stay."  
  
Brionne shook his head. "Nala..."  
  
"Nala sleeps." Drizzt told him gently. 


	7. 7

Disclaimer: the characters and places (Drizzt, forgotten realms, etc, etc) that you've read about in books aren't mine. Brionne, Nala, the places they inhabit and the people around them, are.  
  
SLASH WARNING: You don't like, you don't read. Thanks.  
  
***************  
  
Looking back, Relder knew, to the day, to the hour, when the fey-blooded witchling had ceased to be Markell's Toy and became instead Relder's Passion. Alone in his gardens, he dwelled on the thought, the memories, trying to free himself from the spell those eyes had put upon him.  
  
He remembered Brionne's body, lying bloodied and torn underneath his. The way he cried out as Relder pulled out of him. A vague dissatisfaction had lingered in the act. His rival, Markell, was gone, and the pleasure of using the slave as a surrogate for it's former master was beginning to fade. It was becoming a hollow act.  
  
And then Brionne had rolled over, using the strength of his arms to move himself because there was too much pain in his lower body. The tears were gone, so completely that for a sickening moment Relder had wondered if he had imagined them. The boy's silver eyes had met his in that moment, without fear or worry, and he knew he hadn't imagined the tears, but neither had they been real. Perhaps they had never been real.  
  
Brionne had licked the blood off of the edge of his perfect mouth, a smile curling the soft lips. Those silver eyes wouldn't release him, and he had stared in awed fascination. The spirit Relder thought he had broken wasn't even scratched.  
  
"While I am of course yours, to do with as you wish," the boy had stated calmly, almost arrogantly, "If you tire of the fantasy of raping me, you have only to say so, and I can perform for you acts requiring more...skill."  
  
A week, even a day, earlier, and he would have broken the young man's neck for such arrogance, no matter what it cost to buy him. A week later, and his interest would already have passed, and he'd have already given the Toy away or sold it.  
  
On that day, at that moment, nothing else in the world could have gripped his curiosity and passion in such a way.  
  
He had turned and left the room without a word, too stunned to gather his thoughts for a reply.  
  
It had been almost a week before he went back to the room he was keeping Brionne in, and from that time on, he was lost in the lure of those silvery eyes.  
  
****************  
  
Nala sleeps. Brionne hesitated. He was being called. He fought the urge to obey out of habit. Until Nala was safe, he was no man's slave.  
  
Am I refusing for the sake of refusing? He asked himself then. Or because it is truly how I feel?  
  
Brionne watched the dark Fey's eyes. He knew his own face would betray none of his internal turmoil. The Fey had some skill in covering his emotions, Brionne could tell, but not like a man who had lived two thirds of his life trying to discover and become the desires of other men. Brionne could see the need in those lavender eyes, and that deep gentleness.  
  
Drizzt just waited for him to decide. He had made his offer and seemed patient to wait and see what Brionne chose. It didn't make it any easier.  
  
With a last glance at Nala, Brionne turned and walked back to Drizzt. Gracefully he sank to his knees again beside the man. A soft smile on his lips hid the restless uncertainty he felt. Of all the things he had done in his life, this was the hardest: choosing something for his own happiness instead of his survival.  
  
Gently, Drizzt reached out and brushed dark fingers across his cheek. A soft question was asked. The only thing Brionne could understand was his own name, and the word "Sleep." Just the sound of the man's words was beautiful, so exotic, his tone so soothing.  
  
And suddenly the weight of their journey rested heavy on his shoulders. Sleep had been so hard to come by, even before they left the city. Sleep. Shelter. It was what he needed most at this moment.  
  
Drizzt combed his dark fingers through the darker hair, waiting for a reply. Brionne nodded and stretched out. Drizzt lay down beside him, his motions cautious, as if he were afraid Brionne would take offence at some stray touch or push.  
  
I am happy here, Brionne thought. Happier than I can remember being in a very long time. He rolled over to press against the warrior's side, his head pillowed on the other's shoulder, one hand resting on his armored chest.  
  
********** Guenhyvar was hunting. The scent of blood was in the air. The source seemed to be at the very edge of the large circle she had been guarding around the camp her friend had made in the little clearing.  
  
Great black paws were silent on the earth as six hundred pounds of panther passed. Deer scattered, and birds went silent.  
  
Blood. She padded into a clearing. The fur along her back bristled into a ridge.  
  
Two men, killed clean and fast. The smell of their fear still lingered. Three dogs lay dead in their muzzles. Two had been torn apart, one cut clean like the men.  
  
She tracked the scent of horses. Some went to the west; the others went to the south, with more dogs. Neither group headed towards her friend.  
  
Satisfied, she turned and loped back to where she felt she belonged, at her friend's side.  
  
As she took a circuitous way back, a new scent came to her sensitive nose. It was the smell of men. Their destination lay in the same direction hers did. Feeling a new tension, she increased her pace. 


	8. 8

Disclaimer: the characters and places (Drizzt, forgotten realms, etc, etc) that you've read about in books aren't mine. Brionne, Nala, the places they inhabit and the people around them, are.  
  
SLASH WARNING: You don't like, you don't read. Thanks.  
  
****************  
  
He was tired and content, but sleep would not come. He kept watching the young man beside him, as if every breath was a miracle.  
  
He felt lost and found in the same moment. So much of his life made sense now. Like why he had never acted on his attraction for Cattie-brie. She was beautiful, he did love her, but his appreciation for her looks was more distant than he had thought, and his love was that of a brother. He closed his eyes and tried to remember her, to imagine touching her, but the images slid over each other and he couldn't make the thought whole in his mind.  
  
He wondered if it was the doing of his mother and sisters. Had they destroyed some part of him with their cruelty, warped him when he was young? Somehow that idea didn't feel right. He did not fear the touch of any woman, he just didn't respond to them with the depth of desire that Brionne had woken in him.  
  
Should I have tried to please him, as he pleased me? Drizzt wondered. He realized just how limited his knowledge of physical love was. He had seen the dark conquerings of his homeland, and the affection loving couples on the surface showed in public. He had heard the lewd offers of street girls, yet he doubted all that they offered was physically possible. This morning had proved that he could arouse Brionne, but would it be so easy to satisfy him?  
  
Beside him, the subject of his musings stirred a little in his sleep. A strand of dark hair fell against his eyelashes and he twitched against the tickle of it. Tenderly Drizzt moved the lock of hair, never touching the soft skin.  
  
Brionne's eyes flew open at the same time the sound of noise in the underbrush alerted Drizzt to the sound of trouble. The clumsy footsteps of men were crunching through the forest, coming closer, fast.  
  
Brionne rolled to his feet and sprinted to Nala's side in an instant. He was not a warrior, but his reflexes were not lacking for speed.  
  
Drizzt's reaction was just as fast. He was on his feet before the clearing was invaded. He grabbed Twinkle off of the forest floor and shook the sheath off of it with a snap of his wrist. He didn't know where the dagger had gone.  
  
A band of five men stepped into the camp. They were rough looking men; their eyes were hard and cold. Drizzt could imagine what they saw; one warrior, one unarmed boy, one frightened girl.  
  
They didn't even hesitate. They had no preconceptions of the Drow, and this hurt him. With a sharp command, the bearded man, apparently the leader, gestured at Drizzt. Four of the men drew weapons and charged him. The one with a beard drew a short sword and headed for Brionne.  
  
From the corner of his eye, Drizzt could see Nala and Brionne running. With a sense of dread, he knew they couldn't outrun the man with the sword. He knew they'd be cut down or taken. Desperately he fought the four men surrounding him, but with only one weapon it was difficult to force them back. He slipped between two of them, using their numbers against them, keeping all four from swinging at him at the same time.  
  
And then Brionne was next to a large tree with a branch just above his head. He was making a stirrup out of his hand. Nala put her small foot in it and he lifted, practically flinging her up. She grabbed the branch and pulled herself up, her eyes wide and frightened.  
  
Safe. If they could both just get to safety until he could finish these bandits, if he didn't have to worry about them, it would be alright.  
  
Parrying a vicious slash towards his head, Drizzt spared another glance at the young duo. Brionne leaped for the branch, caught it with his fingertips. Nala reached down, grabbing at his wrists, trying to pull him up. His grip was too precarious. Bits of tree bark showered him as he fell, twisting in the air to land on his feet, facing the bearded bandit.  
  
Twinkle danced in Drizzt's hand, over and around one of the rougher swords. The wielder cried out in pain and dropped the weapon, the tendons of his wrist slashed to ribbons.  
  
The lead bandit closed on Brionne, the sword in his hands a dull blur in the sunlight. Brionne raised his arm to block it from his face. The wicked blow landed on his forearm, knocking him back. His knees crumpled and he drew the wounded arm to his chest, but not a sound of pain slipped from his open lips.  
  
Drizzt used his empty hand like a weapon, and his feet too, kicking and punching at his opponents as his scimitar blocked their blades. Desperation filled his chest. He would not, he could not, lose this fight. The second attacker fell away from the fight, one arm useless because of a broken collar bone.  
  
The bearded leader of the bandits stepped towards Brionne, reached down and grabbed a fistful of hair at the young man's forehead. With a cruel wrench, he pulled his head back, baring the fine black lines of the collar. He pressed the blade of his sword, near the hilt, against that fair throat.  
  
Drizzt's heart stopped. He tried to spread his arms, to show his surrender, but the men fighting him wouldn't stop. He started fighting purely defensively, trying to get past them, get to Brionne, but they wouldn't let him. He expected some moment of parlay, a chance to give up.  
  
Brionne's captor didn't even look at Drizzt, but Brionne did. Time seemed to freeze, and their eyes met. Those silver eyes were filled with pain, and sorrow, and some un-nameable tenderness, but no fear.  
  
And then the world was moving again. He deflected shot after shot without really watching. He saw the bandit's arm muscles tense, and then with a vicious pull, he ripped the sword across Brionne's slender throat and tossed him away like so much garbage.  
  
A sound came to his ears, a wordless scream that he didn't recognize as his, and his scimitar flashed faster and harder, beating down the weapons that stood against him. He had no patience for defense, and felt his body take a strike to his shoulder, hard even through the chainmail. A glancing slice to his ribs slid off of the fine links.  
  
He cut the third man down, accepting the stab to his bicep that it required to get into the right position. He didn't even really feel it. He tangled swords with the fourth man, turning his opponent's body so that he was a momentary shield against his last remaining comrade. He brought his knee up again and again into the man's groin, and then cut him diagonally from hip to ribs as he went down.  
  
The look on his face sent his last opponent, the man who had slashed Brionne's throat, into a fit of shaking. He raised his sword in clumsy defense. Drizzt's face was a mask of grief, lips pulled back from white teeth, his eyes mad with pain and sorrow. He slapped the flat of his enemy's sword away with his free hand, taking a step forward. The man retreated, raised it again, and again he slapped it away. In desperation, the bandit swiped at him, a poorly timed and poorly aimed blow. Drizzt paused in his advance and the blade just touched the front of his tunic. Drizzt swung the scimitar, cleanly. The man fell at his feet, dead.  
  
Too late, Guenhyvar burst into the clearing, her muscles tense, looking for somebody to fight. There wasn't anyone.  
  
His heart full of dread, Drizzt turned around. Brionne was sprawled on the ground, Nala at his side. Dimly, he could remember her screaming the young man's name as he fell.  
  
He heard Twinkle clatter to the forest floor, but didn't know he had dropped it. 


	9. 9

Disclaimer: the characters and places (Drizzt, forgotten realms, etc, etc) that you've read about in books aren't mine. Brionne, Nala, the places they inhabit and the people around them, are.  
  
SLASH WARNING: You don't like, you don't read. Thanks.  
  
Someone screamed, but it was far away. He leaned closer to his mother and she stroked his hair, soothing in the dark.  
  
"My sweet Brionne," she whispered, love and sorrow in her voice. He knew he was dreaming, knew what the following day would hold for the ten year old child in his mother's arms. He didn't want to think of it. He didn't want to remember what would be the child's future.  
  
One of the auctioneer's men walked by with a torch, the light shining obscenely bright through the bars of the slave pens.  
  
His mother sighed, gathering her courage. "Brionne, listen to me, my child." She whispered, and he looked up at her tear-streaked face, just visible in the dim light. "Whatever they want you to do, whatever they try to make of you, remember that you can always pretend to do it, pretend to be it. Remember that they cannot change who you are, only what you do. No matter what comes, I know you will be a good man someday. I know this."  
  
Someone was calling his name. A man's voice hoarse with emotion, with fear. He tried to get up, to go to that voice, but a sudden coursing pain down his right arm stopped him. It hurt worse than any injury his body had ever known. It poured over him, through him, and he couldn't gather the strength to face it. Grateful, he let the dreams take him again.  
  
Nala was crying in his memories. He knew by her dress and the setting that he was remembering the first day they met. He would have gone to this stranger who looked like him, only female; held her, comforted her, but Relder was there. He had seldom seen his master's eyes so fierce with desire.  
  
"Teach her." Relder ordered him. He found himself at a loss for words for the first time in years. "Make her be like you."  
  
Guilt stabbed him like a knife. He knew, he had always known, that Relder preferred women to men. He knew he had been the anomaly in the man's life. He just never thought this man would begin a search for a woman as similar to Brionne as possible. The very thought was...diseased.  
  
"I cannot." He had told the man, so sure in his control. His only hope for her, for his soul, was to devalue her to the point that Relder wouldn't want her. "Look at her, where did you find her, a farm?"  
  
He summoned all of his allure to his eyes, all his warmth, all the things Relder desired in him. That smile, seductive and cocky at the same time curled on his lips. His master stepped forward, and for a heartbeat, Brionne thought he had him distracted. It was the only time in their years together that he misread the man.  
  
Relder slapped him to the ground. "You can train her, and you will, you stupid jealous whore. I will be back in a fortnight. If she displeases me, I'll punish you. And her." His eyes were like ice as he left the two of them.  
  
He had tried. To his pride and shame, he had tried. The threat to himself meant nothing, but he knew she would have no chance at all without learning what he could teach. His mother's last words haunted him. Nothing he could do would make him a good man in his own eyes.  
  
In the end, it mattered not at all. There was no possibility of teaching her in two weeks what he had spent twenty years learning. Relder was displeased. They were both punished. Nala almost died. Perhaps it would have been a mercy if Brionne had smothered her in her fevered sleep, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.  
  
"I failed you, mother." He wanted to cry, "I failed Nala; I failed myself."  
  
He heard his name again. The pain in his arm was still there, but he was finding no comfort in his memories, his dreams. With a gasp of effort, he forced himself to go to that voice. To wake.  
  
************************  
  
The hunter bared her teeth in a silent snarl. Her dogs milled around without direction, confused and unable to find the trail. They had been down a dozen dead ends, and now the scent was gone completely.  
  
"Spread out!" she ordered her men. "Look for some sign."  
  
The hunter's voice was sharp, to make sure they understood the importance of their task. As they rode off into the forest she felt herself smiling. The hunt was proving interesting after all.  
  
****************************  
  
Nala put her hand on Brionne's chest. She felt her spirit focus, sharper and brighter than it had since she had been taken from her family. She held that point of focus, feeling it, knowing it in every way, and then she sent it spinning down through the physical connection she had with Brionne's skin.  
  
The collar fought her, in its dark yet passive way. The sensation was like pushing through tar; it clung, dirty and thick, to her 'self' as she passed.  
  
And then she was inside of it, swimming through the bright energy of Brionne's form. She found the harm at his throat, and knew it was no threat to him. A lance of his pain passed by her, and she tracked it down the nerves to his arm.  
  
The bones were broken, jagged ends grating against each other. "Pull, like so." She instructed her body, the far-away shell of herself. It complied. Bright pain flared throughout the injured area. "Turn, to there. Release, and hold."  
  
She felt the focus of her energies becoming tighter and tighter, smaller and smaller. She pulled the pieces together, binding the splinters, knitting the break together. She guided Brionne's body as she had her own, but on a smaller scale. "Build here." She whispered to his bones. "More blood there."  
  
His body was providing the fuel for the healing, but hers was spending the energy to guide it. She felt a fading in herself as her body called her home. With fierce determination, she denied it, trying to get the bone stable, strong.  
  
Exhaustion overtook her, and she couldn't maintain that control, that focus. Her own body reclaimed her with fierce possessiveness.  
  
******************************  
  
Drizzt carried Nala, cradled like a sleeping child against his chest. She had been this way since before Brionne woke up. He wouldn't have been so worried for her, except that Brionne seemed at a loss for her condition also.  
  
Brionne walked beside him, stumbling and exhausted, but he wouldn't stop. Twice now, Drizzt had forced a halt, determined to make his stubborn friend rest before he hurt himself. Both times, Brionne had tried to explain to him, but he was too tired to find the right words, or the gestures to say what he wanted to. When Drizzt didn't understand, he would just bend over, pick up Nala with a grimace of pain, and walk on. Within a few steps, Drizzt would take her again, and they would walk further in silence.  
  
A gaping wound, from ear to ear. Silver eyes staring dead at the sky. Gentle lips parted with the leaving of his last breath, never to kiss again. Drizzt had expected all of these things when he had walked numbly to Brionne's fallen form. Instead, Nala had been doing...something. Some sort of healing spell, but nothing he had seen before. Brionne's right arm had been broken. That was obvious from the way it bent sharply in the middle when she moved it. Now it wasn't.  
  
More amazing was the slash to his throat. He had seen the force the man put into the cut. He had seen almost the full length of the blade drawn against Brionne's flesh. Brionne should have been opened to his spine. And yet the wound was shallow--tiny marks across the gaps the "collar" left bare, and a bruise that was slowly turning dark. The collar would not allow itself to be cut, and somehow it had saved him.  
  
The forest became less dense, more tame. Occasionally they would cross a wagon-sized path, probably leading to some small homestead. The day passed from morning towards afternoon, though the sky remained dark with the promise of rain.  
  
Brionne stumbled again, and caught himself with his left hand on a tree. His right arm was cradled protectively against his chest. He hurt, but he wouldn't stop.  
  
***************************  
  
REVIEWER REQUEST: Was it cheesy? Let me know what you thought. Thanks, 


	10. 10

Disclaimer: I don't own Drizzt or any of the Forgotten Realms characters or places. Everything else is mine.  
  
Slash in upcoming chapters. If you're not comfortable with it, don't read it.  
  
***************************************** Brionne walked into the clearing alone. Behind him, Nala stood waiting with Drizzt, hidden in the edge of the forest. She had woken a few hours ago, and seemed in better health. Brionne knew Drizzt wasn't pleased to stay behind, to let Brionne be the one to see if this was a safe place before all three of them were exposed, but Brionne was the one who could speak to the hut's inhabitants, so he was the one to meet them.  
  
Ahead of him lay a small hut, with a thatched roof and a sprouting garden to one side. Behind the house, they had seen a small empty corral, and a small stream running through the edge of the man-made clearing. Along the treeline was row after row of stacked logs. A woodcutter then, Brionne thought.  
  
A dog tied in the front yard barked and bristled at him. Chickens pecked and scratched at the ground at his feet, ignoring the dog. A small mark carved above the doorway caught his attention, the seven-pointed star of the Sisters. He allowed it to give him some hope, but didn't lower his guard. The person who had carved that may not be the one living here still.  
  
With care, he evaluated his posture. He let his exhaustion show through in the tilt of his head, the way his right shoulder hung lower than the left. He cradled the right arm against his chest. Under the sleeve, it was bruised from wrist to elbow, ugly marks in red, purple and black. To become what he needed to be at this time only required him to stop pretending to be strong.  
  
Still far outside the dog's reach, he stopped walking. He could almost feel Drizzt watching him from the woods.  
  
"Stay inside!" he heard a muffled voice say, from behind the closed door. A woman's voice, sharp with fear. A moment later the door opened, and the farmwife stepped out, a crossbow in her hands. She looked to be a simple woman, clothed in a rough homespun grey dress with a knitted red sash around her waist. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face into what looked to be a braid down her back. Her brown eyes were wide, but her aim was steady, pointed at his chest.  
  
Brionne spread his arms wide, not bothering to hide the wince of pain from his wound. Let her see you're unarmed, he told himself. Let her choose her own time to speak.  
  
"What do you want?" she asked after a moment, still wary. The door behind her opened a crack, and he could see a small face peeking out.  
  
"Food," Brionne replied, "A place to rest. I can pay." This was the test. When he had decided to go up to the cabin, he had left almost all their coin with the Fey. They hadn't expected someone who worked for their money to kill him for the coins in his pocket, but they could demand it and then chase him away. If the woodcutter's wife would offer food and rest in exchange for coin, the place was at least a little safe, and they would be better for having spent a night here to recover their strength. If she would rob him and chase him off, they would lose just the few coins he carried in their gamble.  
  
The woman's lips pressed into a thin line. "There's a town not half a day's travel east. Somebody there'll sell y' food."  
  
Brionne shook his head. "Please." He put all of his pain, all of his exhaustion into that word. "Please, I cannot go to town." He met her eyes, feeling her determination wavering. Look young, he thought to himself, not a threat. He felt himself sway from weariness, and it wasn't an act.  
  
"Sit down, child," her voice was softer. "Before you fall down." He obeyed, resisting the urge to tell her he was older than she was. The ground was comforting beneath him. "I'll feed y', but I wont say y' can sleep here. M' husband'll be back soon and I guess he'll chase y' off." She lowered the tip of the crossbow bolt as he sat in the sparse springtime grass of the yard.  
  
******************************* Alustriel watched from the arched window of her tower as the contingent of dwarves made their way through her city. Buenor Battlehammer and his daughter, the red-haired human Catti-Brie, lead the way.  
  
In the middle of a pack of dwarves walked their prisoner, a human-sized person in wizard's robes, bound and gagged. Occasionally he would falter, and the dwarves behind him would prod him forward with their weapons.  
  
She felt her soft smile beginning to falter. Besides Catti-Brie and the prisoner, none in the party was taller than the dwarves. Where was Drizzt? Wouldn't he have come with his friends, if for no other reason than to visit in Silverymoon with her?  
  
With a growing feeling of dread, she left her chambers and descended the stairs, going to meet the dwarves and find what trouble had beset them.  
  
*******************************  
  
In the end, he had called Nala and Drizzt out of the forest, and the woman, Anja, fed them all. It was plain fare, but after so long on the stale bread in Brionne's bag, the rough bread and baked potatoes seemed like a feast. Drizzt kept his weapons hidden, and when they made no sign of being a threat, she started to trust them.  
  
The small children Brionne had glimpsed in the doorway came out to investigate the strangers. There was a boy, around six years of age, and a girl two years younger. With a smile lingering at his lips, Drizzt watched them from under his hood. They were as plain as their mother, but they glowed with the warmth of a child who is loved.  
  
They were finishing the meal when Anja's husband returned, a sturdy looking man driving a wagon. The horse that pulled it was old-looking and grey. The wagon was full of logs. Seeing strangers in his yard, he jumped down, ax in hand.  
  
Drizzt watched him, his hand not far from where his cloak hid his scimitar. He saw Brionne take Nala's hand, though the young man smiled at the woodcutter in a warm and welcoming manner; humble and grateful.  
  
Anja and her husband spoke for a moment. Her voice sounded relaxed. Her husband responded, seeming to agree with something. Drizzt glanced at Brionne, and saw hope in the young man's eyes.  
  
In the end Dalt, Anja's husband, went into the house and came out with cheese and hard summer sausages, and the trio ate again at his insistence. Anja seemed displeased with his decision until he spoke to her with soft words, and pointed to the seven-pointed star above their door.  
  
Drizzt resolved to ask Brionne about it, if he ever had enough of the right words.  
  
***********************  
  
The hunter looked to the clouds and cursed, her voice too quiet to be heard by the men just in ear-shot to either side. "To Brambleton!" she ordered, louder. "The sky is going to open tonight. They'll look for shelter and we may find out where from my agent in town."  
  
The men wheeled their horses and the dogs, dejected by their failure, slunk along after them. Even if they had somehow found a scent before the storm broke, the rain would wash it away before they could follow it very far.  
  
********************* 


	11. 11

*********************************  
  
Drizzt watched Brionne as they settled in to sleep in the small shed where the hay was stored. Anja had taken Nala into the house to sleep on a pallet by the hearth, but there wasn't enough room for all three there.  
  
Drizzt smiled as they prepared for sleep. He had dressed the bandit-caused wound on his arm, and found it less serious than he had first thought. The hay in the shed was clean and still smelled fresh, even though it was from the previous autumn's harvest. The family had given them blankets to make it more comfortable. There had been hardships in his life much worse than a night alone with Brionne in a barn.  
  
A puzzle nagged at the back of his mind though. The collar. In his admittedly limited travels in the city here, he had seen no overt signs of magic. He assumed such a thing was rare and expensive. If so, why put it on a slave, unless that slave was more valuable than the collar itself? What could Brionne do, he wondered, what could he be to make him deserve such a perverse distinction?  
  
He stretched out beside Brionne, feeling their legs brush against each other through their clothing. The younger man had apparently decided to sleep in his shirt and breeches, so Drizzt had followed his example. The fine mithril armor lay near at hand, and even in their uncertain circumstances, he felt safe without it. He had chosen to lay on Brionne's left, away from his still painful arm.  
  
Brionne's pale eyes closed within a few heartbeats after he lay down, and Drizzt could not begrudge him the need for rest. The young man had almost died today, had suffered the pain of a broken arm, and had walked for most of the day without much sleep at all.  
  
Not sure that his touch would be welcome, Drizzt slipped his arm across Brionne's chest. He didn't need much, certainly not the attention and effort Brionne had given him in their short interlude in the forest. He just longed to be able to touch him, so he took the risk and was rewarded by a soft sound of pleasure. The young man seemed to slip into a deeper sleep.  
  
Awake in the deepening darkness, Drizzt tried to make a list of all the qualities and occupations a slave would be valued for. Next he tried to match Brionne up with those ideas. An artist, Perhaps? Dancer, singer, musician of some sort?  
  
"Consort." A voice whispered in the back of his mind. He remembered the feel of Brionne's hand on him, so sure and confident. Experienced.  
  
He tried to deny it; tried to find something else that would explain it all away. He felt a sting of loss, as the beauty of the time they had spent together became marred by the thought of Brionne doing those same things for other men; being forced to do those things for other men.  
  
He tried to work through it, lying there in the dark, feeling the slow steady breathing of the ex-slave beside him. Did the things he had felt were real matter at all to Brionne? Were the touches, the affection he had experienced given with the same...love...they were received with?  
  
Another thought occurred to him. He knew Brionne was grateful for his help fleeing the city. Was he using these pleasures as payment?  
  
Though he tried to fight it, the exhaustion of his past days, no less stressful than Brionne's, caught up with him. I must not judge him before I know the truth, He thought. I will not be like those who judge me for the color of my skin.  
  
Sleep took him in her soothing arms and laid his worries to rest, at least for a little while.  
  
****************************************  
  
Catti-Brie watched Alustriel as her father explained their mission. Catti- Brie was the daughter of a dwarven king. She had never felt the need for fine jewels or silken dresses to make her feel strong and beautiful. At least never except when standing in the presence of the Lady of Silverymoon. Somehow she always felt so plain and dirty in Alustriel's home, as if just by being there, she soiled the place.  
  
"And then the durned elf was just gone." Bruenor was saying when Catti-Brie turned her attention back to her father's words. "This 'un was beggin' for mercy, saying he could get Drizzt back. We didn't want to trust him to start castin' spells, so we brought him here t' you."  
  
Catti-Brie glanced back at the prisoner, remembering his eyes as she sighted down a glowing arrow at the center of his chest. His terror, her pain at the loss of Drizzt. How hard it had been to not just shoot the bastard. In her heart of hearts, she suspected that he was lying to give himself a few more days of life; that her friend was dead, gone forever. The locket that Alustriel had made to find him had been cold since the wizard cast his spell. Cold as death.  
  
She looked back at Alustriel, determined to keep hope alive. If anyone could get him back from wherever this wizard had sent him, the Lady of Silverymoon could.  
  
***************************************  
  
The bang of the gate slamming open seemed deafening to the child as he was led out of the area with the pens and onto the stage. After two days in the darkness of the back rooms, the late morning sunlight stung his pale eyes, and he cried out and raised his hands to shield them.  
  
"Show your face." A sharp voice hissed at him. The man's switch smacked his forearm, just hard enough to leave a welt. Never. He had never been struck before. He stared wide-eyed at the man, too startled to even speak.  
  
The man ignored him, walking instead towards the edge of the stage. The slack in the rope between them disappeared, and the child was yanked along with him by his wrists, to stare at the gathered crowd. A sea of faces stared back at him, leering, hungry like monsters. In his memories, as in his dreams, they weren't human, couldn't be human.  
  
"Fey-blooded!" He heard the man who held the rope call. "Fair and young. Unsullied!" The rope was pulled and he turned in circles, his eyes still watering from the brightness of the sun. "Who will start the bidding on such perfection?"  
  
A flash of lightening. The roll of thunder. Not the auction gates. Not the harsh glare of sunlight. Brionne opened his eyes, lost and disoriented. Utter blackness filled his vision. The sound of rain hid any other sound that may have been made. An arm was draped across his chest. He concentrated on his own breathing. Steady. Silent. The arm moved, the hand sliding along his ribs in a soothing motion, though it seemed to Brionne that the man had not woken.  
  
Drizzt. He though with a sharp ache of relief. Here, with Drizzt in the hay-barn. I am safe. Nala is safe. Memories came flooding in on him; the day of his first and only auction; the feel of the sword striking his forearm; watching Drizzt fighting, surrounded, as the bandit pulled his head back and tried to end his life.  
  
His breathing still perfectly steady, perfectly measured, he let the tears fall down his face. Safe, he tried to remind himself. I am safe, Nala is safe, Drizzt is safe.  
  
*****************************  
  
The hunter's horse shied at the scent of blood, and the dogs began to whine. She could see the shapes of bodies in the light of her torch. "Keep watch." She ordered her men, as she stepped down out of the saddle.  
  
With a booted foot, she turned over one of the corpses. A man, bearded. It was neither Brionne nor the Fey. He didn't matter at all to her. Frowning, she inspected the other two. Neither of these were her quarry either. She remounted her horse and began to lead the party onwards towards Brambleton.  
  
Less than an hour's ride away they found another body, white and bloodless; the man appeared to have bled out through a grievous wound to his wrist.  
  
Four desperate looking men, dead in the forest, near the trail the runaways followed. She re-evaluated her prey. Perhaps the Fey weren't as fragile and peaceful as the legends said. Perhaps this one was of some strange dark-skinned breed, different than their vulnerable cousins.  
  
A thought occurred to her, and she smiled. Perhaps the Fey had changed. And returned.  
  
************************** 


	12. 12

Disclaimer and warnings: see previous chapters.  
  
They changed darkvision in the new FR books, but I like it as heatvision better, so that's how I wrote it. (  
  
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Drizzt woke in the utter darkness between lightening strikes. Rain pounded on the roof of the shed they slept in, but it was well-made and there were no leaks to let the rain get to them. He could feel Brionne breathing, the slow rise and fall of the younger man's chest under his arm. There was no sense of wrongness, no sense of danger, yet he knew something had woken him.  
  
He let his vision shift, seeing the world as patterns of heat instead of reflected light.  
  
Brionne was not asleep. Drizzt could see his open eyes, staring blindly into the darkness. His mouth was open, to let his breath slip without sound through his lips. Drizzt watched the slow tracks of Brionne's tears; so very hot as they left his eyes, cooling to invisibility as they traced down his cheeks.  
  
He watched his own warm fingers reaching out towards Brionne's cheek; after a moment's hesitation brushing the tears away.  
  
Startled, Brionne jerked back from the touch, a motion that was sudden, almost violent. He had no idea that Drizzt could see in the darkness. Heat rose on his cheeks. Embarrassment at being caught crying, or at his startled reaction? Drizzt made a soft soothing noise, like he would calm an injured animal.  
  
"Shh, Brionne, there is no shame." He whispered. Have I caused these tears? He couldn't help but wonder. Have I harmed him? Has he harmed himself by...performing...for me?  
  
He resolved, even as he gently tangled his fingers in the young man's hair, that if his touch was rebuffed a second time he would relent and leave Brionne in peace. Acting more on instinct than thought, he leaned in and kissed the tears as they dried on his lover's cheek.  
  
**********************************  
  
The Hunter pulled the oil-cloth of her hood closer to her face, trying to keep out the downpour. Wet and cold; two conditions she didn't appreciate being in at the same time. She heard one of her henchmen sigh as the lights of Brambleton came into view. Soaked and miserable, the hounds followed the equally soaked and miserable horses.  
  
She hoped the runaways were out in the weather also, though it was probable they had found a place to hide from the rain. A scattering of farms and hovels could be found here, as well as some small natural hiding places.  
  
The hooves of her horse hit the edge of the cobblestone road, clipping now instead of clopping, and she looked forward to even the shabby warmth of the Kingsway inn.  
  
***************************************  
  
Brionne gasped at the feel of Drizzt's lips so gentle on his cheek, a sharp sound, almost a sob. Drizzt held himself still, determined not to force himself on Brionne, but also determined to not reject him either. For a moment, neither of them moved, and then Brionne's smooth cheek brushed against his, lips kissing lightly at his jaw.  
  
Drizzt felt himself let out a breath he hadn't known he had been holding. He drew his body closer to Brionne, pressing close through their clothing. He could feel the warmth of the young man's body, the strong leanness of him. He had meant the touch to be nothing more than comforting, yet Brionne's reaction was immediate, and passionate.  
  
Brionne's hand ran over Drizzt's hip, pulling their bodies tighter against each other. His kisses became more insistent, more hungry. He whispered a question, the words muffled against the dark lips he kissed. Gente, Drizzt tried to calm him, to smooth the desperation from his actions.  
  
"Brionne, I don't understand," he said, determined to not be foresworn. He watched, feeling almost guilty for the advantage, as Brionne searched for his hand in the dark.  
  
"Touch." Brionne said, running his fingertips over Drizzt's. "Touch me." And he guided that hand down along his stomach, arching his back as it rubbed over him. Drizzt felt almost dizzy as Brionne rubbed his hand against the front of his breeches, against the stiffness there. He had never touched a man in such a way, had never even thought it was something that could or should be done, before he had met Brionne.  
  
With growing confidence, Drizzt stroked him, encouraged by the tiny sounds of pleasure that slipped from the warm lips. He felt his own body, already aroused, throbbing with need.  
  
So steady in battle, or in the forest, his fingers fumbled with the laces of Brionne's clothing. He was shaking with desire, with the need to return the pleasure he had received earlier. He slid the rough-spun fabric of the young man's leggings off of him, letting them fall nearby. He ran his hands over the smooth skin of Brionne's shoulders, divesting him of his shirt as well.  
  
Awed, he stared down at the naked form beside him. He was perfection in form and proportions; slender yet strong, lean and beautiful. The heat of the younger man's longing glowed on his skin, in the graceful column between his legs.  
  
Blind in the darkness, Brionne's hand searched for the edge of his undershirt, and finding it, slipped up inside, searching for soft skin. Their lips pressed together again. Brionne's tongue flicked at the edges of his lips, eager against his teeth. When they parted again for breath, he whispered, "Kiss. The word for that is kiss." And then he demonstrated it by reengaging the embrace.  
  
Drizzt tried to remember all the ways Brionne's hands had touched him, had pleased him. He reached down, uncertain of himself, and stroked the young man's arousal with a slow, light touch. With his lips, he kissed the flushed skin of Brionne's neck, down the hollow of his throat. He remembered the feel of Brionne's palm on his nipple, and hazarded a lick at his.  
  
The slender form jerked under his experimental caress, and he felt his confidence rising ever higher. Brionne writhed with pleasure, his fingers clinging to the blankets beneath him as if trying to anchor himself in a sea of sensation.  
  
Instinct, and perhaps stories he had heard of the things women will do for men guided him. He found himself kissing, licking and biting his way down Brionne's torso, reveling in the taste of his skin. In a brief moment of hesitation, he stared at the tip of the shaft in his hand, and then he was licking it too, as his hand still stroked it.  
  
Brionne's hips arched against his mouth. Strong fingers tangled in the wild white mane of his hair; not pushing or guiding his head, just clinging. He found himself drawing the now-slick shaft against his lips, then deeper, and deeper, until it was filling his mouth, filling his world. He lost himself in his desire to please. His lover moaned deep in his throat, and then Brionne was gasping his name in warning, and tugging at his shoulder.  
  
Filled with sudden concern that he had somehow done something wrong, Drizzt lifted his head, turning to look Brionne in the face. The young man's expression was one of restrained bliss, and as Drizzt pulled away, he surrendered to it, the heat of his climax pumping wetly over his stomach and chest. His body went limp against the fragrant hay of their bed, as all the strength left him for a moment.  
  
Panting, he reached down, and drew Drizzt's lips to his. This kiss was slower, like a whisper of promises yet to be fulfilled, gifts to be given, secrets to be exchanged. The kiss was like magic, and Drizzt felt himself surrendering to it. 


	13. 13

Disclaimer: see previous chapters.  
  
***********************  
  
Nala woke, and it wasn't as if she had been asleep for a night, it was as if she had slept for weeks, perhaps months. In the dark of the room, near the glow of the banked fire, she shook her head, trying to rid herself of the dream she had lived. Pain, terror, shame. Her mind danced away from the beginning, refusing to visit such a place. And then Brionne, taking care of her, promising her safety, happiness. A dark man who was not a man; fighting like a legend come to life.  
  
She remembered dreaming of Brionne being injured, killed, yet somehow he had lived through the slashing of his throat, and she had healed him of the broken arm. She sat up and pressed her fingertips to her forehead. The ache behind her eyes tried to tell her it hadn't been a dream, and she tried to ignore it.  
  
Candlelight flickered and she looked over, to see Anja, the woman from her dreams, stepping down the steep stair from the sleeping loft above into the kitchen. Nala shivered and drew her blanket around her shoulders. It wasn't a dream, then, she thought.  
  
"Good morning to y', Nala," the farmwife said. Her voice was soft, as if trying not to wake the husband and children sleeping upstairs. "I'm going to start making some bread, for your trip. Would y' like to help?"  
  
Nala hesitated, and then nodded. In the quiet of the farmhouse, with the scent of flour and yeast in the air, she felt herself beginning to heal.  
  
****************************  
  
"Again," Alustriel instructed, and the wearied spellcaster began again, reciting every detail he could remember of what had happened to Drizzt. He went through the actions of his day before the heroes had found the group of highwaymen he had been working with. He went through the flow of battle, what he could remember of it. He explained the spell he had cast, which should have sent Drizzt away, but not so far that he couldn't have just walked back in an hour or so.  
  
"There is something else. You must be missing something," Alustriel told the wizard. "Start over, earlier."  
  
The wizard sighed and ran his fingers through his lanky hair. By this point he seemed as desperate to get Drizzt back as the Ranger's friends did. "We had just returned from a um hunting trip, back to the caves where we were hiding..."  
  
"Tell me of the caves," Alustriel interrupted.  
  
The wizard blinked his watery blue eyes. "They're um, natural, but we found brick-word deeper in. Supports and um, arches."  
  
Alustriel narrowed her eyes. She had an idea, but would need to see these caves for herself. "We leave within the hour." She told the wizard, then left his "guest room" to find Bruenor and Catti-brie, knowing they would want to accompany her.  
  
******************************  
  
Drizzt shook his head, watching Brionne and Nala arrange their new possessions. He couldn't help his wry smile, and was almost glad of the hood hiding his face. Brionne had spoken to Dalt and Anja, and arranged to buy almost as much food as they could carry, an un-torn shirt for Brionne, a shawl for Nala, the blankets Drizzt and Brionne had slept on the previous night, and, most surprising of all, the family's horse.  
  
It had taken over half the coins in Brionne's purse, Drizzt knew. Still, he somehow doubted Dalt had bargained as hard as he could or perhaps should have. To make up for it, he had left a few of his own Waterdeep-minted coins in the bottom of the water bucket that Anja drew water from the stream with. He trusted Dalt's good sense to not let the uncommon money get his family or Drizzt's group into trouble. He hoped the man would get fair exchange for them. They were gold after all, and some of the coins in Brionne's purse were also, so the metal had to be of some value here.  
  
He glanced at his traveling companion just in time to see Brionne slip a few of his precious coins into Zan, Dalt's son's, hand and whisper some quiet words. He almost spoiled it by laughing. Brionne seemed to have had the same idea he did.  
  
Stifling a laugh with his hand, Drizzt had to look away. He pretended to contemplate their mount for a moment. As far as horses he had known went, their animal wasn't spectacular. In any other circumstance, it would be less than acceptable, but here and now, it was better than nothing. He guessed the grey to be an old warhorse long since retired, put to pulling a wagon instead of carrying an armored knight. Old scars, marked by rough spots in his coat and patches of white hair, marked it's dusty hide. It looked strong though, and sturdy. He had no doubt that it could carry all three of them if need be. It would let Nala and Brionne, unused to such physical trials travel for more of the day, and that was worth the coin alone.  
  
In control of himself once more, he watched as Brionne and Nala said their goodbyes to the small woodcutter's family. Anja hugged them both with Meek, the baby girl, clinging to her shoulder. Dalt clapped Brionne on the shoulder. Dalt asked Brionne a question, and both glanced back at Drizzt. Self-conscious, Drizzt reached out to touch the horse, resettling the blanket that they had instead of a saddle on the animal's back. He could tell they spoke of him, though had no idea of the words they exchanged.  
  
Brionne smiled at him, gesturing him over. He asked a question, and motioned for Drizzt to remove his hood, but Drizzt knew from the tone that it was a request and not an order. Dalt watched him, puzzled but relaxed. Brionne would not ask this of me if he thought it would go poorly, he thought to himself. He lowered the hood, keeping wary eyes on Dalt.  
  
Of all the reactions he had ever received, this was the last one he would have expected. Dalt's eyes, and that of his wife, went wide with awe. Dalt folded his hands together, and he made a strange and overformal bow to Drizzt.  
  
Brionne laughed, but it was not unkind. His silver eyes twinkled with amusement, as he said something that began with Dalt's name and ended with Drizzt's. Dalt looked embarrassed and stood up straight again.  
  
"I don't understand," Drizzt said, hoping the explanation was possible. Dalt didn't understand those, but Brionne did, and smiled back at him. In that moment he felt like all the suffering of his life, all the pain and prejudice, was worth it to receive that smile.  
  
"Drizzt is Fey." Brionne said, making a motion at his own ear as if pinching the tip into a point. He pointed to the star shape above Dalt's front door; the mark Drizzt had assumed was some sort of holy symbol. "Fey." He said, as if that explained it all.  
  
Drizzt could only shake his head, amazed at a place where elves were so rare that they inspired religious reverence.  
  
********************************  
  
The hunter left the Kingsway Inn feeling more in need of a bath than when she arrived. The innkeeper there was an unsavory man, afflicted with a deep love of drink and a tendency to grope anything that didn't threaten to stab him, but he always seemed to know of the latest local gossip. In her head she carried a list of outlying farms and homesteads that the innkeeper thought might shelter her fugitives.  
  
Before she left the town, she found a courier to take a message to Lord Relder, detailing the hunt to this point. And then she was off, with much to do and the trail growing cold.  
  
********************************** 


	14. 14

Brionne was riding behind Nala.  Nala had changed in the past day, and the difference was an immense relief.  She was there.  She didn't speak, but she did participate, instead of just following, or running from danger.  She was becoming the friend he had met in the worst of places again, and for that he was grateful for whatever gods might be looking over them.  

The day was beautiful.  Drizzt walked easily to one side of the horse.  He seemed as happy as Brionne had ever seen him.  The early morning pleasures seemed to have taken the worries from him and left him free and relaxed.  Dappled sunlight passed over the Fey's white hair, worn long and free in the warrior's style.  It was beautiful.  Some times Drizzt would turn his face to the sun, as if enjoying the sunlight even as he squinted against it.  Everything about him was fascinating to Brionne; exotic.  

As they traveled, Brionne worked to teach the Fey more words.  _So we can communicate better_, he thought, trying to ignore the other reason at the back of his mind; _so that if I die, he may still get Nala to safety. So that when the collar's punishments become too much for me and I go back to Relder, he can speak for himself.  _

It was easier to focus on the happier reasons, to remember the playful lesson in the dark of the hay-shed, as he listed every part of Drizzt's body and reinforced the message with a lick, touch or caress.  He did not blush as he remembered Drizzt's eagerness and willingness, but the thought brought a sensation of warmth to his chest, and he cherished it.

"Anja is wife to Dalt, mother to Meek, mother to Zan."  Brionne was explaining.  "Zan is sister to Meek, son to Dalt, son to Anja."  Drizzt nodded, seeming to understand.  "Meek is sister to Zan, daughter to Dalt, daughter to Anja."  

Drizzt looked up, eager to learn.  "Meek sister, Zan brother."  He smiled, white teeth bright against the darkness of his skin.  "Nala sister, Brionne brother?"  

Brionne shook his head, knowing how confusing it must be, how much they looked alike, sitting together on top of the horse.  "Ai, no."  He used the word Drizzt had used for his cat.  "Friend.  Brionne and Nala are friends."  Drizzt looked skeptical.  Brionne searched for the words.  

He held one hand out to the side, "Mother, father, Brionne."  He named his fingers.  He held the other hand out, holding onto the horse with his knees.  "Mother father Nala."  He folded down the "parent" fingers on both hands.  "Bought."  He explained, making the universal gesture for money as he brought the Brionne finger to the center.  "Bought" he said again, moving the Nala finger beside it.  He watched Drizzt, trying to see if he had been understood.  

Drizzt nodded, but asked a question, using the word Brionne was beginning to suspect was "Why?" 

Brionne caught Nala watching the conversation, a slight frown at her brow, but she didn't interrupt or seem upset.  

"Brionne was bought."  Brionne explained, "And was good.  Yes?"  Drizzt nodded.  "So he bought a girl who was the same to his eyes."  He made a hand gestures for the words, trying to express himself.  "He thought she would be good too."    

Brionne felt his face losing all expression, becoming gentle and distant.  Nala sighed and looked away.  Drizzt frowned with impotent anger.  

"Brionne?"  Drizzt asked.  He made a knee-high gesture.  "Bought?"  he raised his hand to his hip.  "Bought?"  He raised it again, to his own head height, raising his eyebrows in question.  Brionne stared at him for a moment, trying to understand.  What could he be asking?  Then it suddenly made sense.

"I was bought first when I was ten years old."  He flashed both hands open.  "The second time, seventeen.  The third, twenty two.  The fourth, twenty-eight."  He illustrated each sale with his fingers, showing how many years.  Drizzt nodded and looked away, and for a moment they walked in silence.  

"Drizzt?"  Brionne asked softly, and the lavender eyes met his.  "When were you bought?"  

The Fey looked away, and Brionne knew he wasn't being ignored, that some things were difficult to speak of.  Drizzt made a gesture with his arms, like he was holding a tiny babe.  "Drizzt his mother's slave and sisters' slave."  He made a gesture like sitting the baby on the ground, raised his hand like the child was growing.  "Slave, slave, slave."  When the hand was even with the top of his head, he smiled and gestured it away like he was letting a bird take flight from his fingers.  "Free."  

Brionne smiled, bittersweet and gentle.  There was no jealousy, but a soft envy, a sorrow for what had been taken from him when the collar had first been put on him, what he would never have again.  "Free." He whispered, feeling happy at least that Drizzt and Nala would know that feeling soon, and forever.  

He had slipped into day-dreaming without realizing it, thinking of Nala safe and happy again.  And then he was falling, pain from the collar invading his entire being, cutting off his thoughts, his control over his body, even his breath.  It was a sensation so overpowering it was like going mad for a moment.  

The muscles along his spine contracted, arching his head backwards.  Something was wrapped around him, holding his shoulders off of the ground, but he couldn't understand.  Wave after wave of agony cut through him.  There was no getting used to a pain like this, no learning to accept it.  In the heart-beat between waves he tried to take a desperate drought of air and breathed in liquid instead.  

The next wave was upon him then, and he writhed in desperation, trying to breathe.  

*****************************

"Hello in the house," called the hunter as she approached the woodcutter's shack.  Her men and dogs waited down the path, out of sight.  After a few moments, a man stepped out, a wood ax held down at his side.  

"What do you want?" he called back, every line of his posture wary.  

"Hunting brigands," the hunter replied, "They killed four travelers in the forest, not far from here.  Have you seen any strangers?"

The woodcutter shook his head.  "Nah.  Don't get much company out here."  

The hunter's eyes glanced around.  She noted the churned up ground near the house, where it looked like a horse had been loaded and mounted since the rains swept the ground smooth.  

"Where's your horse?"  She asked, her voice still companionable.

"Gone.  Wife took it over t' the farm over th' hill.  Girl there's expectin'. "  

There was no reaction on the hunter's face, nothing in her eyes.  "I see."  She said.  The man shifted uncomfortably on the porch.  

"Good day to you, sir." She said, turning her horse and heading out, following the hoof prints so visible in the soft earth.


	15. 15

Yeah yeah, I know magic doesn't exactly work this way in FR.  Please forgive me.

*************************

Drizzt saw Brionne falling in his peripheral vision.  He was quick enough to get under him in time to slow, if not stop, his crashing to the earth.  The horse, a veteran of combat, stopped walking and turned around to regard them.  Nala slipped from the steed, clinging to his mane to lower herself to the ground before running to Brionne's side.  

The slender form in his arms twisted in agony, and Drizzt watched as the collar pulsed its dark energy through his body.  

"I have you," he said, knowing his soothing tone was more important that the meaning of the words.  "I have you, you are safe."  

Brionne's head tilted back in his thrashings.  He had a heartbeat to gasp air, and then writhed again.  Drizzt held him, helpless to do anything else.  He looked down, and saw Brionne's teeth were dark with blood, that he must have bit his lip or tongue as he fell.  The young man gasped again, and the inhaled breath sounded wet and wrong, but he was in too much pain to even cough.  

Nala was clinging to Brionne's hand, and he to hers.  His knuckles were white, yet she didn't make a sound of complaint.  Drizzt rolled him over, trying to let the blood run out of his mouth instead of down his throat.  He supported the young man's shoulders with one arm, and held his head with the other.  

It seemed to last forever, but he knew the fit had left Brionne when his chest started to heave with deep breaths and choking coughs.  Drizzt stroked his hair, letting nature work to clear Brionne's lungs of the thick fluid.  Finally the young man rolled over, sitting up and turning his head to spit.  Drizzt tore a strip off of the end of his undershirt and folded it up, passing it to Brionne to hold against his cut mouth.  

"Brionne...."  Drizzt began, searching for words.  "How can this thing, this collar, be stopped?"  Silver eyes regarded him, uncomprehending.  "The collar," he began again, touching it with light fingers.  "Broken how?"  Half of the question was in Brionne's language, half in the common that Drizzt knew from the land he called home.

Brionne shook his head, and forced his tired body to its feet.  Dark fingers closed around his wrist, firm.  "Brionne, I will make the collar broken if you can speak the way," he tried again.  To see this and not be able to help was maddening.

Brionne shook his head.  "It won't be broken. It won't be cut."  He tried to pull away in frustration, but Drizzt wouldn't let him.  He fell back to his knees in the damp leaves beside Drizzt.  Nala watched, white teeth fastened on her lower lip as if trying to decide if she should step in and help her friend.  

Drizzt was catching a few of Brionne's words from the context.  "The collar hurts me," Brionne said, twisting his face into a re-enactment of his recent torment.  "Every day," He pointed to the sky, to the course the sun took.  "Until I go back to my Master and be a slave."  He tapped his own chest, and pointed back down the path the way they had ridden.  Blood ran down his chin, and his eyes were fierce.  

"Why?" Drizzt demanded, trying with desperation to understand.  "How?"  

Brionne looked down to where his pale wrist was held in the dark hand.  Without a word, he raised his silver eyes to Drizzt's violet ones, no expression at all on his face.  Drizzt became aware that he was still holding Brionne's wrist in his tight grip.  Self-conscious, he released the young man's arm, appalled to see color rush back to the white marks his fingers had left on the fair skin.

"Why?"  he asked again, his voice softer, gentler.  "How?"

***********************

Alustriel studied the portal she had found in the caves.  Built in an archway that led to nowhere, it was old, perhaps the oldest she had ever seen.  Tentative, she sent out a tendril of her magic, of her self, to the structure.  Yes, it had been active in the past ten-days.  Somehow its magic had interacted with the wizard's, to perhaps disastrous effect.

/Where?/ she heard it whisper back to her.  The voice was an ancient rasp, thin and ragged.  

"Repeat the last journey." She instructed it.  

Words of a spell flowed from her fine lips, her hands moving with sure skill as she called up a spell of scrying, trying to see where the portal would lead.  

A vision of a seashore opened up in the archway of the portal.  Gulls flew through the air, their screams silent.  She could see the ocean spread out to one side, cliffs to the other.  In front of her, far away, sprawled the wall of an ancient city.

"I'm not seeing th' durned elf."  Complained the dwarf behind her, and she wished for just a moment that this side of the portal were as silent as the other.  There was a sound of a hand smacking the dwarf's armored shoulder, and things fell quiet again.  

Stretching her concentration, she took the magical locket out of the tiny pocket in her sleeve.  From the cool metal she felt a tiny spark.  He lived.  With arcane words, she stretched the scrying spell, changing it, forcing it to /fit/ the locket.  The seascape began to shimmer and fade, and she waited to see what it would reveal.

**************************

/ Does it matter?/  Brionne wanted to protest.  "How?" Drizzt asked him though, and "Why?"  And there was such deep emotion in his violet eyes, such desperation to understand and help.  There would be no putting this moment off, no avoiding it at this time.

"There is…" Brionne began, searching for a word that he could describe in gestures, a word that could be understood, "A leash."   He made a gesture from his collar to his hand.  He moved his hand in a jerking motion, and followed with his neck, as if the two were connected.  He looked to Drizzt, and saw that so far he was being understood.  

Controlling his impatience at the amount of time it took to explain, he told Drizzt how distance from the "leash" caused the pain.  He explained how a stone could be a leash.  It was frustrating, and it seemed to take forever. The moment he dreaded arrived.  "When Nala and Drizzt are free, safe in the Free Cities, Brionne will go back."  He looked up at Drizzt, his silvery eyes pleading for understanding.

For just a heartbeat, Drizzt's face betrayed his surprise, the sting of rejection he felt, confusion.  And then his face steeled, growing firm and determined.  "No."  He said, voice calm.

"What?"  Brionne asked, startled at this reaction.

"No."  Drizzt repeated.  "Nala will be safe.  Drizzt and Brionne will go back.  We will find the 'leash' we will take it and we will go again to the free cities."  The Fey gestured with his hands, making his meanings clear.   His voice fell to an impassioned whisper.  "Brionne will be free."

The words cut.  Hope of this type, loyalty of this type, was something he never asked for, something unknown and frightening.  He felt vulnerable in a way he couldn't remember ever feeling.  

"Drizzt…" he whispered.  His eyes were burning.  "If they catch you they'll make you a slave too."  Drizzt's black fingers cupped his cheek.  His thumb brushed at the skin under Brionne's eye.  

"The will not catch us."  Drizzt told him.  Brionne believed it.


	16. 16

Alustriel stared at her scrying, overlaying the portal.  The bodies of men lay scattered through the clearing like refuse; unburied, un-mourned.  One man's dark eyes stared at the sky, dead and unseeing, as insects began to devour them.  

"Drizzt was there, I'm thinkin',"  Cattie-Bree's voice spoke from behind her.  Hope swelled in the young woman's voice.  "It's lookin' like his work."

Alustriel couldn't find a reason to dispute the evaluation.  Still, it saddened her, to think of her friend, forced to such violence.    The locket in her hand was beginning to warm.  Closer, but not close enough.  She let the spell dissolve.  It was taking more out of her than she had expected.  The portal was pulling at her, drawing the magic from her.  She would not be harmed by it, but her spells weren't as strong here as she would like.  She would rest, then begin again.  

She would not lose him.

*************************

Drizzt thought Brionne looked better. They had put several leagues between them and the place where Brionne had his last fit.  The two men had ridden for a while as the younger rested.  Now Nala rode while they walked. They had passed another stream, and Brionne washed the blood out of his mouth.  His smile and energy had returned soon after.  

The stream led downhill, in the direction they were going and soon merged with a roaring river.   They followed the river downhill, looking for a safe place to ford the waters.  Cool spray settled over them, giving a watery shimmer to their skin and hair, the horse's hide.  Nala fluttered her eyelashes like a princess and they all laughed at the effect.  

Brionne glanced up at the trees above them, and then took a second look, a grin on his lips.  "Drizzt!"  He called with a grin.  He went over to a tree and in a heartbeat he was pulling himself up among the branches, nimble and graceful.  With one hand on a not-so-sturdy looking branch, he reached out, plucking hard green fruits from the tree and dropping them down.  

Drizzt smiled, catching the offering.  He passed some to Nala.  She grinned down at him.  The horse turned its grey head to consider her, and she fed it one of the fruits.  Huge yellow teeth chomped down near her tiny fingers.  Juice squirted and dripped on the ground.

Drizzt watched until Brionne came back down.  He admitted to himself that he was surprised.  When they had met, he never would have expected the young man to be comfortable with climbing a tree in the middle of the forest, or to have the determination to walk for hours while freshly wounded, or …so many of the things Brionne could and had done.

Brionne perched on a rock by the river, tearing the fruit open with his fingers.  The flesh inside was juicy and golden.  The dark haired boy grinned as he ate, the juice running down his chin where so recently blood had.  Drizzt laughed.  "You are a mess, love."  

The younger man looked up.  "I don't understand," he said in common as unaccented as Drizzt's.  It seemed he knew those words quite well by now.

Drizzt grinned at him, teeth white against the darkness of his lips.  "Mess." He said, pointing at Brionne's lips as he dipped the corner of his cloak into the stream.  He dabbed at the juice, with care to avoid the cut from the fall. "Not a mess."  

"Love?"  Brionne asked, so innocent.  

Drizzt shook his head.  He had not meant to say that.  "It is nothing," he said with a shrug and a smile.  He pulled the dagger from his belt, cutting a fruit into slices for himself. _/So much tidier this way. _He grinned and passed the blade over to Brionne.

***********************

_Like arrows,_ she thought, watching her hounds on the trail.  Dark shapes in the trees, they flew down the paths, through the forest.  Her heart beat hard and fast with the thrill.  Soon.  She was closing in on her prey.  It was only a matter of time now, if nothing else unexpected happened.  

She savored the anticipation.  So very close; a day, perhaps just a little more.

********************

Brionne almost took the dagger before he seemed to realize what it was.  His hand jerked back as if he had almost grasped a stinging insect.  His eyes widened and he took his fruit back in his cupped palms.  

Drizzt's white brows came together in puzzlement.  "No, you can take it."  He said, offering the knife again.  Brionne shook his head.  

Distracted, he watched the younger man, eating the slices of his fruit.  It was sweeter than he would have thought, though tangy also; unlike anything he had tasted.  Brionne had relaxed and was eating his fruits again.  Drizzt tried to puzzle out why he wouldn't take the weapon, even to cut food with.  He had used a rock against a man; he could easily have broken the slaver's skull, so Drizzt didn't think it was an aversion to holding an instrument of harm.  

_Could it be a fear of being indebted to me? _He wondered.  He tried to pass the blade again.  

"Brionne, here.  For you."  

Again Brionne shook his head.  "No," he tapped the collar.  

"Brionne, you are not a slave."  _Was this part of a slave's conditioning here?_  "You are free.  You can take this."  

Shame flickered across the fair features, before his expression faded to none at all.  "I take…" he made a stabbing slicing gesture, searching for a word.

"Knife."  Drizzt provided.

"I take the knife and the collar will hurt me."  His voice was soft, almost distant.  

The idea made Drizzt feel ill.  He could not hold a knife?  Drizzt could not think of a man or woman who did not carry or use a blade at some time, for some purpose.  It was as if Brionne was trapped in some perpetual childhood.  _A toy, and not a man.  He has been kept as a toy,_ the thought whispered through his head.  _He knows it, and it shames him that I know now._

His lips became a gentle smile, and he took the fruit from Brionne's unresisting fingers.  He cut it into neat slices and passed it back.  The smile he received in gratitude was soft, but genuine.  

************************

Relder's hands shook as he read the note.  It was written in the hunter's own hand; a dense and businesslike script.  

_The trail is warm._

_They have found combat with brigands and survived._

_Your property will soon be returned to you, along with the dark thief._

She had not signed it, though he had no question who it was from.  He sank to his knees in the center of his bedchamber.  Gods, Brionne, his Brionne, attacked by brigands.  He could have been injured.  He could have been killed.  A vision of those silver eyes, closed forever, passed through his tormented mind.

_I should have gone with her.  I should have hunted him instead of staying here._  The political intrigues, the financial interests, paled to insignificance in his life.  _I should be there, to save him.  To kill him.  I should be there.  _

Relder put his forehead to the floor, feeling its coolness seep into his skin.  

Outside the door, his guards glanced at each other nervously, hearing their lord weeping alone in his room.  He was not sleeping, and barely eating.  He walked the halls at all hours of the day and night.  His eyes were ringed with dark smudges, and his hair hung lifeless from his head.  He seemed to care not at all what his servants or his peers thought of him.

The soldiers looked back at the blank wall in front of them. They feared he had gone mad, over the loss of a slave.  

********************

********************

Request to reviewers:  Okay, if you've been reading this far, you have an idea what the fic is about.  How well does the summary fit?  Can you help me make a better one?

Thanks,

Janelly.


	17. 17

The world was dark.  The horse shifted in its sleep, snorting in some equine dream.  

Guenhyvar was beside him as he rested, just within reach of his fingertips.  Her presence comforted him, in the cool of the evening.

The nearby river rushed over its rocky bed, making a sound like the wind rushing through the forest, only louder.

One night.  One night of falling asleep in Brionne's arms.  One night of feeling the warmth of a lover's body beside his as he slept.  _Lover._  His mind still shivered at the word; so unfamiliar, so dangerous.  It made him strong in a hundred ways, and vulnerable in a hundred more.

One night and he could feel the loneliness as never before.  He felt naked, though he slept in his armor.  He felt alone, though he had Guen beside him; Nala and Brionne asleep together less than two strides away.  

A soft rustle of motion sounded, and he held his breath.  It was no threat, this he knew.  It came from too close, from inside the circle of their camp.  A hand touched his shoulder, and he imagined he could feel the warmth through the mithryl.  He moved nothing but his eyes.  He could see Brionne's fingers on his shoulder, and then he felt the young man's body settle behind his, his knees fitting in the curve of his, his arm slipping just so over Drizzt's waist. 

Soft breath stirred the hair at the nape of his neck, and he could feel Brionne slipping back to sleep, or perhaps to sleep for the first time tonight.  

His own eyes grew heavier.  Guenhyvar stretched out, awake but relaxed.  

A soft sound rustled behind him.  Quiet steps in the leaves.  Nala sank to the ground behind Brionne, settling herself against the warmth of him.  

It felt like family.

**************************

The hunter woke her men.  She didn't have to curse or kick.  They were professionals and a soft word was all it took for them to be saddling their horses and packing up the camp.  

She checked her mount's straps.  An instinct, honed over a hundred such hunts, told her that this would be the day.  

Daylight was just beginning to light the horizon when they mounted their horses and began to follow the dogs.

***************************

They forded the river at a wide spot.  Brionne and Nala rode the weathered old horse while Drizzt held onto its mane.  Even here, the waters were swift, and once the steed stumbled and they were almost swept downstream before it regained it's footing.  On the other side, he resummoned Guenhyvar and they traveled as four once more.  

A second night of good sleep had done them all a remarkable good.  Brionne behaved as if his arm caused him less pain than it had, and the wound on Drizzt's forearm was healing well also.  Nala smiled more often, and seemed happy in her own silent way.

Past the next rise, the forest was thinner, and younger.  It looked as if the land had been cleared for farms only a few years in the past, and since left to run wild again.  They moved through shoulder-high brush.  Insects buzzed as they gathered sweet nectar from the myriad of blooming wildflowers.

Drizzt wasn't really expecting to see any sort of pursuit when he glanced over his shoulder, back at the hill's edge.    

What he saw was the forms of three riders.  The group moved with purpose, determination.  They knew where they were going, and were moving with haste.  Guenhyvar snarled when she saw them.

"Brionne..." he called and pointed back behind them.  The young man turned around to look.  His face lost color and expression.

"Hunters."  Brionne whispered, that dead-flatness that Drizzt was beginning to associate with strong emotions in his voice.  He didn't know the word, but he could assume it's meaning.  

Three riders.  He would look for a place to make a stand, try to get Brionne to take Nala and go.  He could join them later if he had to.  If he was able.  

He looked up at Brionne, at the determination in the silver eyes.  Making the young man ride on without him was not going to be easy, he knew.  

************************

The sight of her prey, running from her, excited the hunter more than the gold of the contract.  This was the moment she lived for, the moment when the hunt was almost over, and hope was dying in her prey's heart.  

The two on the woodcutter's horse must be the runaway slaves; the cloaked figure beside them, the fey.  She narrowed her eyes as a black form moved through the bushes near the trio.  An animal of some sort, like an impossibly large cat, moved through the weeds.  She couldn't tell if it accompanied them or was stalking them also.

With a call, she urged her horse and the dogs down the scrub-filled hillside, letting the men follow her as they could.  One of her gloved hands rested on the mount's reins; the other on the dagger at her waist.  

"Soon" was becoming now.

***************************

Alustriel called up the portal again, reformed her scrying spell.  This time she would find him.  If it took every trick she knew, and all of her strength, she would find him.  

Catti-brie and Bruenor stood behind her, watching with anxious eyes as she searched for their friend

*****************************

They were caught against the fast-flowing river that cut the next valley.  Brionne was on foot with Drizzt, trying to lead the horse into the icy water when the men attacked.  A dark haired woman watched from the back of a third horse, a dagger in her hand.  

Brionne watched with horrified fascination as Drizzt fought the mounted men, trying to keep them from he and Nala.  There was a dark beauty to it, the smooth motions of his body, the balance of his motions.  It was almost a dance.  

Guenhyvar was being harassed by the dogs.  She would lunge at one, only to have the lighter opponent scamper back out of range as the other one would leap in and nip at her.  All three animals were taking damage, in nicks and scratches, but more importantly, their distraction was taking her out of the combat.

Now Brionne held the horse's bridle, as Drizzt fought for his freedom, and for Nala's.   Drizzt cut one of the men, but the slaver refused to fall.  Drizzt dashed between the horses, closer to Brionne.  The tip of his scimitar found the throat of the other man as he passed.  

A glint of metal caught Brionne's eye.  The world began to move slowly, as it had the day the bandit tried to slit his throat.  The woman's dagger was airborne, flying from her gloved fingers towards Drizzt's heart.  In that instant nothing mattered.  Not his own life, not even Nala.  In desperation, he threw himself forward, between Drizzt and that weapon, determined that the blade should hit him instead.

He failed.

***********************


	18. 18

****************

The scrying spell opened into the portal's arch, again showing the seashore.  With a push of will, Alustriel commanded it to re-center, to show the dark elf that was linked to the spell-bound locket in her hand.

The image shivered and reformed.  The scene of combat shocked her, and for a moment the spell's control almost slipped from her power.  Two horsemen crowded the figure of the drow, trying to get a clean strike on him.  Guenhyvar bared her teeth, her snarl silent in the scrying spell's view, as she snapped and sprang at two quick dogs.  

"Let us through!" Bruenor shouted, ax in hand, and ready to rush to his friend's aid.  

A horse blocked their view for a moment, and in that moment Alustriel commanded the portal to open, there in a place it was never meant to open.  The ancient spell groaned, a sound they all felt grating through the marrow of their bones...  

****************

Bruenor Battlehammer stepped through the portal, and it made every hair on his body itch.  "Elf!"  He bellowed, as the now-riderless horse almost trampled him, passing so close that its tail whipped at his face.  There was a glow behind him, and he knew it was Catti-brie with her bow, ready to guard his back.

And then he saw his missing friend again.  He was on the ground, and a human man kneeled over him.  Bruenor tried to make sense of what his eyes were telling him.  The drow's lavender eyes were wide with pain and shock.  He could see the hilt of a dagger jutting rudely from the ranger's side.  

As Bruenor charged across the intervening space, he watched the man bare his teeth in a savage grimace, reach down, and grasp the dagger.  Drizzt screamed, the sound torn from his throat without a moment's hesitation, without even an attempt to resist it.  His back arched from the pain of it.  

Bruenor howled with anger and swung his ax.  The human looked up at the last moment and caught a glancing blow from the flat instead of the blade on the side of his head.  Eyes still open with surprise he crumpled on top of the elf.

"Bruenor!"  Called a clear female voice, and he looked back to see Alustriel standing in the doorway of the portal.  "I cannot hold it for much longer!"  Strain showed in her face, in the set of her shoulders.

He grabbed the front of Drizzt's tunic with one hand and pulled.  The ranger's body was dragged across the ground, carrying the assassin's with it.  With a dwarfish curse, Bruenor kicked at the body.  The human rolled over, and Bruenor saw Drizzt's fingers, gripped tight in the man's shirt.  

As the dwarf tried to decide if he should just drag them both through the portal, or if it would be easier to stop and pry the elf's fingers off, a dark-haired slip of a girl rushed out at him, screaming and trying to pry _his _ fingers off of Drizzt.  He realized with a sinking feeling in his guts that the girl who was trying in such a frantic way to save Drizzt from him looked disturbingly like the young man he had just struck down.

"Bruenor!" screamed Catti-brie, and he looked back.  The portal wavered in his sight like a mirage in the desert.  There wasn't much time.  

One dog yelped as Guenhyvar finally got a good swipe at it, and then another.  

"Durned elf, why does everything you get into have to be so _complicated?" _He grabbed the girl by her shirt, and shoved her towards the portal.  She took a step, two.  Her eyes were wide with distress. He caught up with her again, pulling the man's unconscious body and Drizzt's pain-wracked one.  

"Go!" He bellowed at her and she took another step towards the portal.  He spared the panther a glance as he dragged his burden towards the way out.  "You, too, cat!  Git!"

The portal was screaming now, a sound that to grated on his teeth and ached in the hinge of his jaw.  Catti-brie stepped out, shouldering the girl into the portal without lowering her bow, scanning the area for enemies. He turned his attention to his burdens, trusting her to stand guard.

He hit the portal, and for a moment, the very marrow of his bones vibrated.  Then he was tripping on the uneven bricks of the cave floor, dragging Drizzt down with him.  They were through.  

*********************

Close.  So close.  And now her prey was being snatched from beneath her fingers.  Stolen, by this freakish looking man and a red-haired bitch with a bow.  

The blatant use of powerful magic had given her pause.  The glowing doorway and the brilliance of the girl's arrow were like nothing she had ever seen.  

But then the girl looked back over her shoulder, her intensity broken for a moment as the bearded creature passed through the door.  And she was just a girl with a weapon, worried for her friend, mortal as anyone. 

The hunter grinned in her heart, but steeled her face into the cold mask of authority. She spurred her horse forward, keeping her seat as it sidestepped around the corpse of one of her dogs.  _That too will be repaid_, she thought. 

"That boy is property of Lord Relder," she announced.  There was something happening to the glowing doorway.  It was making the air tremble.  "He must be handed over to me to be returned to his master."

The red-head shouted something in return, in a strange tongue the hunter had never heard before.    She took a step back, towards the door.  Through the door, and disappeared.  

The door began to waver.  

Gritting her teeth, the hunter spurred her horse.  It took a jerky leap at the door, trying to fight the spurs, the bit in its mouth, trying to go anywhere but there.  It planted its hooves and the hunter could have kept her seat, but the door was closing and the easiest way to get there was to let the horse's momentum take her.  

Heels over shoulders, she landed on the other side with a grunt.

There was a sharp crack behind her and the stone arch she had fallen through began to crumble.

********************

Drizzt and Brionne had been separated.  The strange man and the red-haired woman were tending the dark Fey, pouring a tiny bottle of liquid down his throat.  Nala ran to Brionne, pulling him into her lap, cradling him close against her.  Blood trailed down from his temple, and his eyes were slightly open, his pupils constricted to tiny black specks in the silver.  His breathing was shallow, coming in irregular little gasps.  

Desperate, she dove into the healing without the time to gather her thoughts and center herself.  Chaos struck her, Brionne's damaged brain sending erratic and sometimes conflicting orders to his body, and through it all, the red rush of pain.  She tried to push through, to find a way to heal the damage, but couldn't hold.  With a broken cry she found herself outside again.  He was dying.  

A cool hand rested on her shoulder, and she turned a tear-stained face up to behold the most regal figure she had ever seen.  Pure Fey, as fair as Drizzt was dark, blonde and beautiful and so serene.  The woman's voice spoke, the words foreign but the tone comforting.  The awe-inspiring being knelt next to Nala, next to Brionne.  Without moving him, the woman took a vial of blue liquid and put it to his unresisting lips, holding his head back so it would run down his throat.  Her fine slender fingers came away sticky with blood as she paused a moment, watching.

Brionne's breath became deeper, steadier. His eyelids fluttered a fraction of an inch.  He would live.  Nala realized she was shaking.  She looked up at the pale Fey, awe and gratitude on her face. The woman reached out, gently wiping a tear from Nala's cheek then, with a sad smile, moved back to her feet and turned away, moving towards where the form of their fallen companion made weak movements against the floor.


	19. 19

The hunter was not a woman given to retrospection, or regrets. In this instance, however, she was beginning to question her wisdom. As she had fallen through the faltering doorway, a beautiful fey woman had raised her hand, spoken a few words in some arcane language, and ever muscle in the hunter's body had frozen hard as marble.

The hunter watched, as the dark-skinned fey was tended to, his friends desperately trying to separate her dagger from him. Every time it was touched he would scream, as if his soul was being torn to shreds. They wouldn't be getting it to come out that easy, she knew.

While they were distracted she watched them; the way only one of them seemed to have any concern for the slaves at all, and the frantic way they tended the fey. The strange short man had struck Brionne. She tried to puzzle that out, attempting to see the situation from their eyes. They had treated him as an enemy. 

Plans began to form in her head, options, and alternatives. When the fey woman gave up on helping the dark one, and came over to stand before the spell-held hunter, she was ready.

With a wave of her hand, the sorceress released her. The sudden relaxing of her muscles left her stumbling for balance, but she soon re-gathered her composure, and bowed with all of her military precision to the fey woman.

"My apologies for this intrusion," the hunter began, but the fey stopped her with a gesture. For a moment the blonde woman seemed to concentrate, and softly she did speak. Her fingers worked a small intricate pattern. When her eyes refocused, she nodded to the hunter. 

"Please, begin again." The woman's voice was clear, and she spoke the language of the Empire as a native of its capital. The hunter blinked but refused to be startled.

"My apologies for this intrusion," she repeated, "And for arriving too late to save your friend from the deceiver's dagger. I am charged by my master to recapture and return for punishment the slave and murderer known as Brionne." 

---------------------------------

Brionne woke to pain and cold and darkness. It took him a long time to realize he was awake, and that his eyes were open, and there was nothing to see at all. His head hurt with an intensity that made it hard to think, much less move. He lay there on his side; slowly letting his other senses awaken.

Water dripped, far away. The surface beneath him was rough, like stone, and cold in a way that leeched the heat from his body through the light fabric of his clothing. 

His fingers moved, and he felt rough rope binding his wrists, but his hands weren't close together, nor were they stretched apart. He squirmed a little, trying to figure it out. The bite of his bindings around his elbows and across his back solved the puzzle. His elbows were contained by a rope behind his back. His wrists held by one in front of his stomach. Clever, but by far one of the more humane ways he had been bound in his lifetime.

He tried to sit up, and felt the bile rising in his throat. With a twinge of panic he realized that he had been gagged by another length of thick rope, and if he vomited he might well drown. He forced himself to lie back on the cold ground, waiting alone in the darkness for his world to stop spinning.

----------------------------------

Catti-brie put her hand over Alustriel's as the Lady of Silverymoon stepped into her flaming chariot. 

"Come back. Soon. He needs ye." Her blue eyes were red, her cheeks streaked with tears. The dagger would not come out, and Drizzt seemed to be weakening with every hour that passed. He had not been lucid since he came through the portal. He responded to them with feeble movements or soft whimpers. If the dagger was touched, he would scream. It broke her heart to hear it.

"I know," Alustriel murmured. "I will return as swiftly as I can. I need to search the libraries, and find some knowledge of this strange magic." She gathered the reins in her hand. 

"Be cautious, Catti-Brie," she warned, "Question the three prisoners and get what information you can. The spell I cast upon them will let them understand you for hours now, but I would not trust them yet. The boy still carries a powerful magic on himself, and I know not what it can do, or how he would activate it."

Their eyes met one last time in farewell, and then the Lady of Silverymoon took to the air in her magical chariot, and Catti-brie was left alone outside the cave they had made their makeshift camp in.

Trying to decide which to speak with first, she walked past the Dwarven guard and headed back down into the caves. For the lack of doors, each of the prisoners had been tied, and the ropes attached to pitons Bruenor pounded into cracks in the stone. It wasn't as secure as she would like, but it was the best they could do at this place, and Drizzt was in no shape to be moved. 

The military woman had accepted the inconvenience with no comment. The younger had panicked and tried to claw Bruenor's eyes out until Alustriel had spoken to her. Catti-brie still wished she knew what the elf had told her, but the girl quieted and let her wrists be bound. The man had been unconscious, and of course couldn't protest at all. 

The sound of soft sobs caught her attention, and she went to the younger of the women first, deciding to begin with the one they had most reason to trust (she had tried to keep Drizzt out of the enemy's hands, even if the enemy had been Bruenor), and the least reason to fear.

The girl was sitting in a corner of the makeshift cell, one of the little side caves off of the main corridor. At the glare of Catti-Brie's torch, her eyes went wide and she cowered back against the wall. 

"It's okay, I won't hurt ye," Catti-Brie said, trying to be soothing. "You understand me?" the girl nodded. "Can ye tell me what happened out there?" The girl shook her head. 

Trying to bite back her frustration, the red-head shook her head. "Can ye tell me anything?" The girl hesitated then shut her eyes, shaking her head. 

"You talk at all?" Again, the girl shook her head.

_Useless, _Catti-Brie thought, trying to squelch the pity she felt for the terrified woman. With a sigh, she went down the passageway to get Bruenor's assistance in talking with the other two.

-----------------------------------------

Brionne pushed his body into a sitting position, struggling to not be sick. The effort left him breathless, but upright. In his exertions he had discovered that the rope behind his back was attached to the wall somehow, and would not budge, or at least it would take more than his current pathetic strength to remove it. _No matter though,_ he thought, _I doubt I could be going anywhere even if I was free._

He tried to gather his thoughts. He remembered pain and....Drizzt. The nausea returned. Drizzt with a slaver's dagger in his side. Drizzt's scream as Brionne bit back on his own collar-created pain and tried to pull it out. Nala crying. His worst fears had come to pass. They had been taken.

Footsteps sounded, scuffing on the stone floor. They sounded distant but approaching, and the flickering light of a torch gave him an outline of the doorway. He schooled his expression into one of proud indifference. He would not let them see his weakness, his fear or his anguish for the pain of his friends. Knowledge was power, and the less his captors knew of his feelings, the safer they all were.

The torchlight passed his doorway, outlining the proud posture of a woman and a strange stocky figure of a man. He repressed a shudder, and had a feeling that he was out of his depth here.


	20. 20

"I need to take the prisoner and leave," the hunter began with as the woman and strange looking man came in, attempting to take control of the interrogation she knew was coming.  The girl stood near the door, an arrow nocked to her bow but not drawn. The man was careful not to step into her line of fire.

"What ye need to do is tell us what dagger th' boy stabbed into our friend, and how we get it out."  The dwarf's voice was harsh, his glare dark. 

The hunter shook her head.  "I do not know.  It is nothing like the weapon he used to kill the guard on his master's house, or the boy who kept the horses."  _Play them gently,_ she thought to herself.  _Feed the lies to them with small spices of the truth._  "Even now, his master is ill, and none can find the cause." 

She looked to their eyes.  They were well-guarded, but the wall of disbelief was beginning to come down. 

"His magic," the girl put in, "What does it do?"

The hunter had half-expected the question.  "I don't know."  She pretended to hesitate.  "But the whore has a way of binding people to him.  It seems...unnatural." 

The dwarf's eyes were almost hidden under his shaggy brows, brought together in a frown. 

"And he has traveled many days with your friend," the hunter added with calculation.

A look passed between the inquisitors.  Together they turned and headed back into the passageway, taking the torch with them, leaving the hunter there in the dark.

-----------------------------------------

Catti-Brie studied the man by the light of the torch.  Bruenor was at the kneeling prisoner's side, ax at the ready should he try to cast some spell or activate his magic.  He met her eyes, which she had not expected.  Their color was a pale, sharp silver, and they seemed to stare through her without a flicker of emotion.  Dried blood crusted on the side of his angular face, and his restraints kept his motions to a minimum, yet he still stared at her as if she was so distant from his life that she didn't matter. 

"Do ye understand me?" she asked, making sure Alustriel's spell had taken effect on the unconscious mind.  She expected stubbornness, but the man nodded at once.  "I'm thinking we're going to talk a bit now, do ye understand?"  Again he nodded.  "If I'm takin' off the gag will ye behave?"  She received a third nod. 

She stepped forward, letting her foster-father threaten the prisoner while she unknotted the thick rope that kept him silenced. 

The red-headed warrior stepped back, and watched as the prisoner worked his jaw, easing the muscles cramped from being too long in one position.

"What did ye do to our friend?"  she asked without preamble. 

No expression--no expression at all--passed over the prisoner's bloodied face.   "I don't understand," he replied, his voice as empty as his eyes.  The coldness of him repelled her, angered her.   

"My father saw you stab him!"  She shouted, the heat in her voice surprising her.  "Saw you twist th' dagger!" 

She meant to slap him.  In her heart, she meant it to be a slap.  His gaze didn't break with hers, even though he saw it coming; he _must_ have seen it coming.  And then her fist was blocking her vision of those pale silver eyes, and his head was snapping to the side.  His bound hands didn't allow him to catch himself and he fell from his kneeling position to the floor with a pained grunt.

"Drizzt."  The word was so soft on the prisoner's lips that for a moment Catti-Brie was not sure she had heard it.  The prisoner, this "Brionne" as the woman had named him, struggled to rise, having only his feet to aid him.  The flesh around his eye was already turning dark and swelling.

"Drizzt."  Catti-Brie echoed.  "What did ye stab him with and how do we get it out?"

The prisoner shook his dark head.  "I never struck him," he protested.  "I would never strike him." 

Those silver eyes stared into hers, open, honest.  _A way of binding people to him, _the soldier-woman's words echoed in her head.  _Unnatural._Catti-Brie frowned and blinked and looked away from those eyes.__

"What is that dagger and how do we get it out?" she amended, not having the patience or energy to argue or try to sort lies from truths. 

"Slaver's weapon," the young man told her.  "I have heard of them, seen them, but not in use.  The slaver can remove it but I know not how." 

"Slaver?"  Catti-Brie asked.  "The woman in black?" 

"She is here?"  Brionne's voice dropped back to that toneless, emotionless murmur. 

Catti-Brie nodded, taking in the young man's strange reactions.

"She can take it out."  He said; no doubt in his voice.  "You have to make her take it out." 

"She says she can't," The red-head replied, sparing a glance to her foster father.   

"We'll get some magic in here an' then we'll be seein' who's speakin' true and who isn't," he declared. 

The young man's face looked paler in the torchlight, the blood on his face in deeper contrast.  _Does he fear the truth?_ She wondered. 

Catti-Brie stepped close to the prisoner, the rope he had been gagged with in her hands.  "We have to." She told him, not knowing why she felt the need to explain herself.  Despair flickered in the silvery eyes, yet he opened his mouth for the rope without a word.  She tied it securely behind his head, and then turned away without looking at him again. Bruenor followed her.  Doubt was beginning to seep into her heart.  _I should not have struck him, _she thought with regret. 

She took the torch and went to go sit with Drizzt for a while, holding his dark hand while he lay restlessly on the makeshift bed.  In the light of the torch, she bathed his sweat-streaked forehead, and spoke soft words of reassurance.  It tore her heart to see him in such pain, and not be able to help in any way.  It reminded her too much of when she had gone down into the Underdark to bring him home.  The image of him chained to the wall of the Baenre complex would haunt her forever; her friend, beaten, bloodied, tortured, poisoned until he couldn't even recognize her for the pain. 

She lowered her head, resting it on where she held one of Drizzt's hands in both of her own.  "Come back to us," she whispered.  "Come back to me."

--------------------------------------------

In a far-away place, the last of the hunter's men, wounded and bleeding, rode into the town of Brambleton.  He pulled his mount up to the door of the King's Way Inn, and one of the gathering group of bystanders helped catch him as he almost fell off of his horse. 

"A messenger..." he rasped out.  "I need to send a messenger to Lord Relder at the capital."

-----------------------------------

Nala worked the knot with her teeth.  She could hear voices, though not close enough to understand the words.  One of the voices was Brionne's.  The sharp sound of flesh on flesh echoed to her ears.  A body hitting the floor.  A grunt of pain.

The rope around her wrists fell loose, and she moved to the doorway, feeling her way along in the utter blackness around her.  Ahead, a partially obscured torch flickered, lighting the path of two people as they walked with determination away from her.  One was the strange short man.  _He will not hurt you,_ the Fey woman had told her.  She wasn't sure if she believed it. 

Nala cowered back against the rough rock wall, her heart pounding with frantic rhythm in her chest.  They did not see her.  _Smooth as a shadow, silent as a mouse, _she told herself, feeling her way along the passageway.  The rock floors were uneven, and she was forced to a crawling pace to keep from falling.  One hand rested on the wall to her left, feeling for the hole the pair had come from, feeling for Brionne's cell.


	21. 21

Catti-Brie looked up as her father stepped into the chamber Drizzt was resting in. 

He had a stubborn frown on his face, and she knew even before he spoke that neither of them was going to like what he said next.

"Mebbe I wasn't seein' what I thought I was seein'."  His voice was gruff with the discomfort of admitting he could have been wrong.  "Th' elf was screamin' and I thought the boy did it."  He looked down at their unconscious friend.  One of his calloused dwarven hands reached to rest on his human daughter's shoulders.

"I shouldn't have hit him," she said.  "Drizzt screams now, when _we're_ tryin' to get the dagger out." She sat in silence for a moment.  "Maybe he's tellin' the truth.  Maybe the woman really can take it out." 

Bruenor shook his head, more in confusion than denial.  "I ain't trustin' either one of them, but something has to get done."

Catti-Brie rose to her feet.  "Lets go get her.  We have to do _something_."

-------------------------------

Brionne tried digesting everything he had learned in the past few moments.  Drizzt lived.  The thought gave him more relief than he would have thought possible a week before.  He had to assume that if he, Drizzt, and the hunter lived, that Nala lived as well.

The dagger.  He wracked his brain, trying to remember everything he had ever seen or heard of such a thing.  It had rules, he knew that.  All man's-magic had rules.  The dagger goes in.  The slaver takes it out.  Was it the specific person, or could anyone remove it if the conditions were right?  What would the slaver want the condition to be? 

He tried to understand the strange folk who had questioned him.  Drizzt's friends, or so they claimed, were a strange lot; at first violent and angry, then willing to listen.  The parting words sent a shiver through him.  _Magical interrogation._  Could it be worse than the collar?  Would his mind, the one part of him that had never been defiled, the one place he had as a refuge, be ravished and laid bare? 

A short scuff in the pitch black darkness sent a spear of fear through him.  He pulled himself upright; preparing to face whatever was to come.  A hand touched his arm and he jumped.  A tight grip kept him from falling over.  The person's head rested on his shoulder for a moment, and he knew.  The hair was straight like his, the form slight, like his. 

"Nala." He tried to say against the gag.  She hugged tight around his shoulders.  Blind fingers searched up his neck and along his jaw.  Her touch brushed over the swelling around his eye and he hissed at the sharp pain.  His mouth was so dry, his jaw so tired. He turned his head, putting the knot of the gag at Nala's fingertips. 

As she worked the knot, he tried to formulate a plan.  _Should we try to run? _ The thought was daunting.  He didn't know anything of the passages here, and had heard the voices of guards, in addition to the two he had seen...  The people were friends of Drizzt, but still the idea of fleeing and leaving him here left Brionne feeling pained. 

A scream, heart-wrenching and primal, echoed through the caves.  The pair of runaways froze, eyes wide in the perfect darkness, listening as it faded.  The rope gag fell loose around his head, and he spit it out.

_Drizzt._  Part of him marveled that they took his word and made the hunter try to remove the blade.  All of him despaired that it had not worked. 

Nala started working on the bindings behind his back, but he shook her off.  "They will be back soon." 

She put a hand on his back to steady him, and kept working.  He shrugged again, pulling the knot from her fingers.

"Nala, we cannot be a threat when they come back."  She kept working.  "They'll hurt you."  She kept working.  "They'll hurt me." 

Her hands stilled.  She leaned in and rested her head against the back of his shoulder.  "Just stay with me." He whispered.  "It will be alright."  Even to himself, little hope could be heard in his voice.

Torchlight flickered beyond the small chamber, coming closer.

------------------------------------

The hunter, back in her makeshift cell, finally resigned herself to the fact that there would be no easy snatch and grab here.  The friends of the Fey would be coming with magical interrogation for her soon, and her sham would fall to pieces.  The fact that they had believed the slave enough to force her to try pulling the dagger out showed that he had wormed his way into their confidences, at least a little bit.

_He really was a magnificent creature_, she mused as she reached down, slipping the tiniest of blades from the top of her boot.  It was less than an inch long, had a blunted side instead of a handle, and was sharp as a natural weapon could be.  The Fey's screams had brought her no pleasure. This was not victory.  This was not the culmination of a hunt done well. 

Working with careful haste, she sawed through the ropes that held her wrists.  The position was awkward, but still took her only moments. 

She stretched in the darkness, relishing her reacquired freedom.  Now, all that was left to do was to evade these strange people and get her bearings. From there she could decide to recapture the slaves or to send to Relder for more reinforcements.

-------------------------------

Catti-Brie, Bruenor by her side, left the leather-clad huntress tied in her chamber and went to go visit the young man.  She felt tired, in her heart, and in her body.  The woman had not been able to pull the dagger as the man had promised, but she couldn't even muster true anger at him. 

Alustriel's departure felt like it had been days ago, instead of only hours.  Drizzt was weaker after the failed attempt at pulling the dagger.  _Come back to us._ It had become her silent mantra, her prayer to whatever gods may be watching over them.  _Let him come back to us._

She just wanted to talk with the man again, to tell him what had happened, to see if he could think of any other way the dagger could be removed.

They turned the corner into the man's chamber, and the first thing she saw was the rope he had been gagged with hanging loose around his shoulders, his mouth free to cast spells.  Her bow was in her hands before she even thought about it; an arrow nocked and pulled back to her cheek. 

Blue eyes met silver; the blue filled with pain and anger, the silver with pain and fear. 

"Please," he begged her, all trace of pride or arrogance gone now.  "Please, I thought it could work."  He shifted his body and she saw that he was shielding something, or rather someone, behind him; the girl who _should_ have been in the other chamber.

_He thinks I'm here to kill him,_ Catti-Brie thought in shock.  Her second coherent thought was, _and he has no spells to cast or he would have used them as we came in._

She lowered the bow.  "We didn't come for your head." She said, resigned.  She stepped around the young man, reaching for the girl's arm.  The dark-haired woman clung to the man's back, a soft whimper in her throat.

"Please."  The man began again.  "Please, for pity's sake, leave her be."  He turned his shoulder, trying to separate the two.

"We are no threat to you." He said, desperation and sorrow in his voice. 

Catti-Brie stepped back.  "Fine." She sighed, unable to meet his eyes.  The sight of his bruised eye filled her with guilt.

"He weakens."  The young man's voice was soft, and they both knew who he spoke of.  With reluctance, she nodded. 

"It has to come out or he will die." 

"We know that." Bruenor grumbled.  "Now tell us how."

The young man hung his head low with exhaustion as he thought.  The girl behind him clung to his back, seeming terrified of being even an inch away from him.  Their loyalty to each other touched Catti-Brie.

"A rule," the young man muttered.  "There has to be a rule.  When would a slaver want the blade to be removed?  Under what conditions?"  His head snapped up.  "Bind him."  His voice was so sure, so confident.  His eyes glittered with what may have been madness.  "It is all I can think of.  It must be right." 


	22. 22

Gone.  The pain was gone in one sudden moment. 

Lavender eyes opened to see a familiar face staring down at him.  Catti-Brie's eyes were dark with concern.  Torchlight flickered.  She was lifting his head, pouring a potion down his throat.  He swallowed obediently, trying to gather his strength.  He felt so weak, so tired. 

There was a sudden motion at his wrists, and then they moved apart. He realized he had been bound.  The thought made no sense.

"Where?" He asked.  "How?"  The potion had soothed any pain in his throat, but still it felt dry, hoarse.  He struggled into a sitting position.

Bruenor moved over to help support him.  Strength was returning to his limbs.  "Easy, laddie," he murmured in his gruff way.  "We almost lost you."

"But now ye're home," Catti-brie told him, life and joy sparkling in her eyes.  "Alustriel found you in the portal, and we brought you home."  She wrapped her strong arms around his shoulders, pulling him against her in a tight hug.  Her lips found his, and she put every bit of her relief and happiness into that kiss.

Drizzt couldn't kiss her back.  His lips were still against the motions of hers.  "Brionne." He spoke, pulling away from her.  Dread settled into his chest.  Her eyes were wide and uncomprehending.  He could see the hurt in them at his rejection.  Hurt he had caused.

"There was a young man and woman with me," he began.  The thought of Brionne and Nala, left behind in their master's hands, alone without him to guard them, was too painful to contemplate.  "Please.  Please tell me they are here, and safe."

Bruenor and Catti-Brie shared a glance.  "They're here an' safe." Bruenor finally muttered just before Drizzt began to despair.  "But we had no way of knowin'.  That woman was sayin' the things he done, and I thought he was the one to do the stabbin'."

Drizzt pushed himself up to his feet.  The world swayed for a moment, then he was stronger, as his body accepted the healing of the potion he had been given. 

"Where are they?" he asked, looking from one of his friends' eyes to the other. 

"Down the passage," Catti-Brie told him, gesturing to the one archway that led from the room they were currently in.  Her voice was quiet in a strange way.  Her eyes seemed haunted by guilt or something like it, and that frightened him. 

The red-haired archer took a torch and moved to guide him.  He reached into his pouch, feeling the need for the wordless support of his oldest of friends.  "Guenhyvar." He called, and mist poured out of the figurine, to pool and become the huge black panther. 

He rested one hand on the sleek black shoulder, gaining strength from her silent company.  Large feline eyes regarded him for a moment, and then he was walking, following Catti-brie down through the twisting passageways. 

It took only a short distance for him to notice the reluctance in her steps.  At any other time, he would have worried for her. He would have asked her what was wrong.  At this time, he felt an overwhelming need to hurry.  He couldn't wait.  "Brionne!" he shouted into the winding passageways. 

A moment's pause, then a voice answering, "Drizzt?"  It echoed through the winding passages.  It was Brionne's voice, filled with hope, fear, and urgency. 

Drizzt stepped past Catti-Brie and her torch.  His eyes shifted to see in the darkness as she hurried after him.  He moved as if he had walked here before, though the caves were new to him.  He heard in the echoes the shapes of the tunnels, the map of the walls.

"Drizzt!"  Catti-Brie called after him.  He came to a fork in the way and took the left passage without hesitation.  He couldn't reply to his long-time friend as she called after him.  Here, close; he stepped through an opening and was in a small chamber.  He saw Brionne, on his knees, his head turned to the side as he spoke with Nala, who was hiding behind him. 

"Drizzt, we didn't know," Catti-Brie was saying.  "There was no way we could tell." 

In the flickering glow of her torch, he let his eyes shift back to the spectrum of light. 

His heart lurched in his chest, and he felt for a moment like he was going to fall.  "Brionne..." he whispered.  The young man blinked against the sudden glare of the torch, but he met Drizzt's gaze with a mix of fear and hope.  There was blood, dried into his hair, against his fair skin.  And the bruise, marking the outer curve of his left eye, swelling from his brow bone to his cheek.   Rough cord held his wrists and elbows immobile. 

Wordless, Drizzt took the few steps to his lover's side, crouching next to him.  As if drawn there, his fingers reached out to hover just above the bruise.  Brionne flinched away from the anticipated pain.  The flinch cut to the heart of him, and he wanted nothing more than to take him into his arms, to kiss the injuries away, to make him whole and happy again.  But the young man hadn't encouraged him, by word or deed, and they had never touched in love under the eyes of another.  Without guidance, he did not act on his impulses.

"Drizzt?  What has happened?  Where are we?"  The words coming in the common tongue of Faerun were almost as much of a shock as the distress on the young man's face.  Only once, in all the fear and exhaustion of their travels, had he seen through the mask Brionne made of his face, to see the pain he hid so well.  The mask was gone now, along with his certainty, his feeling of purpose. 

Drizzt had started to untie the bindings around his wrists, but stopped, reaching out to touch the unblemished side of his lover's face.  Brionne closed his eyes and leaned into the caress.  "All is well." He promised.  "We are in my home, though I do not know how.  You will be safe here.  Nala will be safe.  You are free here, both of you." 

Brionne nodded, shaken and afraid still, but seemed to believe his words.  Drizzt went back to untying the knots in the rope.  He felt almost frantic to get them off, so great was his distress at seeing his lover bound.  The hilt of a dagger tapped him on the shoulder and he took it, looking up with brief gratitude at Catti-Brie. 

"How did this happen?" he asked, trying to keep the tone of accusation from his voice and failing.  With growing anger he sliced the ropes between Brionne's wrists, then turned him slightly to get at those behind his back. 

"Forgive me."  He looked with surprise at Brionne, the last person he would have expected to answer.  "I did not know they were your friends."  The dark-haired man was rubbing the feeling back into his wrists and elbows, and Drizzt reached out to help him, glancing at Catti-Brie. 

A mixture of surprise and guilt showed in her blue eyes.  He looked back at Brionne and was met with a soft and apologetic smile.   

He glanced over Brionne's shoulder next.  "Nala?"  he asked.  "Are you well?"  The girl nodded, though she clung close to Brionne with as much desperation as she had the first day they met in the alley.

"Can you stand?"  he asked Brionne, who nodded, though his eyes were unsure.  Drizzt slipped an arm around his waist and helped him to his feet.  He moved awkwardly, as if his legs had gone to sleep from sitting too long.  _How long have they been here?_  He couldn't help but wonder.

"Where are ye going?" Catti-Brie's voice was soft, questioning. 

Drizzt froze.  After so many days of desperate flight, the need for motion had infected him like an illness. 

"They should not be here, in these tunnels," he said, trying to put his feelings into words.  "They should be under the sky, the sun, the stars..."


	23. 23

Brionne shivered, looking up at the stars, constellations that he had never seen before.  Nala leaned against his chest, and he put an arm around her, keeping her warmer against the crisp night air.  Yesterday it had been spring.  Now it was winter.  His breath steamed in the cold, and he knew they could not be outside for long. 

There had been some sort of disturbance as they had stepped out of the caves.  One of the guardian dwarves had been injured when the bounty-hunter made her escape, but would recover.  Drizzt had gone to speak with the red-haired dwarf that had accompanied the woman who had struck him.

Thoughtful, he stared up at the sky.  He would not mar his features by chewing his lower lip or furrowing his brow, but he was disturbed nonetheless.  _What is to become of us?_ He wondered. 

Ideas flowed through his head like the rushing river that had cut off their escape from the bounty-hunter. He knew, he couldn't question, that Drizzt would help them, but would things be as they had been in Dalt's barn?  Would they be together still, or would the eyes of his friends chase the desire from Drizzt's heart?  How could he be free of the collar now, with no master to go back to? 

_She loves him._  The image of the red-haired warrior woman lingered in his thoughts.  _Will she hate me, or him, if she finds out?_  A hand touched his shoulder, and he repressed the instinct to jump in surprise. 

He turned with casual ease, a mild smile on his lips.  "Drizzt," he acknowledged the Fey behind him, but his eyes were on the red-haired woman that stood a step further away.  He bowed to her with all due courtesy.  "You know my name, lady, though I do not know yours?"  He looked back up to her face.  A multitude of emotions flickered on her face; joy, sorrow, hope, guilt.  So many that it wasn't even worth trying to figure out what she felt because she felt everything. 

"Catti-brie."  She nodded just enough to show a return of politeness.  Her eyes refused to look at the damaged side of his face.

"Brionne," Drizzt spoke again.  "Would you be opposed to Nala walking with Catti-brie for a moment that we may speak?" 

Brionne glanced at Nala, his outward manner relaxed, yet behind the masks he was terrified.  _Is this the end?_ He wondered.  _Will we be cut adrift in this new place?    
  
_

Nala nodded, and Brionne smiled at her courage.  Catti-brie held out her hand, and the dark-haired girl took it.  Together they walked back towards the sheltered warmth of the caves.

Brionne turned back to the stars, letting the dark Fey speak first.  He could hear Drizzt take a step, could feel his presence, so close and yet not touching him.  In a bare whisper, the unexpected words came, "May I hold you?" 

Brionne froze in surprise.  "Of course."  He couldn't seem to find the strength in his own voice, and it came out so soft that for a moment he feared he had not been heard.  Warm arms surrounded his shoulders.  A warm cloak enfolded him, and the scent of Drizzt, the strength of him.  He closed his eyes.  _Just feel,_ he told himself, _do not think, just feel._  He leaned back into the embrace, letting his body relax. 

"I thought the lack of words was a barrier," Drizzt's voice behind him began, "And now that the barrier is gone, I find myself terrified of the open new world before me."    

"I feel the same," Brionne whispered.  He would not tremble.  He would not bite his lip.  He would not allow emotion to overwhelm him.

"Please," Drizzt murmured from behind him, "Please tell me what it was that we shared.  Tell me what we are; tell me what you would have us be to each other." 

The soft entreaty frightened him the way the most cruel or lewd order from his master never had.  He thought only of his breathing for a moment, desperate that Drizzt not know how this scared him.  He wished he had a month, a year, to find the words to express his feelings.  The fey only held him, patient as he waited for the answer to his plea.

"It was joy," he whispered at last.  "It was only joy to touch you, to be touched by you."  He steadied himself, his words soft and even.  He would not allow his voice to crack.  "I cannot tell you what we are together, without knowing what this was for you.  I..." he cursed his weakness.  "I would have us be together.  I would be yours; I would want to be with you and please you, for as long as you would want me." 

The arms around him shook as they pulled him closer, and then released him.  "Brionne, you are a slave no longer."  Brionne turned as the arms fell away.  "I would not own you."  Drizzt's downcast eyes were full of pain, and did not meet Brionne's silver ones. 

Brionne felt himself starting to smile as he reached out, slipping his fingers under the fine-boned chin of his lover, tipping it up and gently forcing Drizzt to look at him. 

"If I am free, should I not be able to choose who to bind myself to in love?"  With tender care, he brushed the wild strands of white hair from Drizzt's brow.  "I know I could choose another to be at my side, or decide to be alone for a time.  I chose to have you, Drizzt, if you will have me.  If you will be mine in return." 

The dark warrior closed his eyes, and Brionne could see the struggle within him.  _Is he so used to denying his desires?_ He wondered.  He leaned in close, until his flushed lips were almost touching the dark ones.  "Drizzt?  Do you trust me with your heart?" he asked, letting his whisper brush his lover's lips.  Lavender eyes opened and gazed into his.

"Of course." 

Brionne tangled gentle fingers at the nape of Drizzt's neck, feeling the tension in the fine muscles.  "Then trust me with my own heart." 

---------------------------------------------

From the opening of the caves, Catti-brie watched as Drizzt and the young man embraced, their touches hesitant at first then almost desperately passionate.  Drizzt seemed careful of the man's bruised face, and she felt yet another sting of guilt at having caused it. 

The light touch of a hand on her wrist drew her away from the sight, to stare into the silver eyes of the girl called Nala. 

With no words, the girl drew her close, into a gentle sister's embrace, wrapping her slender arms around Catti-brie.  Soft hands stroked over the auburn of her hair.

"I love him."  Catti-brie protested to the world, appalled at how her voice squeaked, how like a hurt child she sounded.  Nala drew her down until they were both sitting on the wind-swept ground.  Like a mother, she held Catti-brie, rocking her and petting her.

"I know."  Catti-brie looked up, watching as Nala touched her own lips with her fingertips.  A look of shock and something almost like fear was on her face that she had spoken.  Catti-brie wondered how long it had been.  Nala composed herself, silver eyes going back to Catti-brie's blue ones. 

"I know you love him." Her voice was infinitely kind.  "Sometimes the only way we can express it is to let them be happy."

------------------------------------

Dalt swung the sledge hammer, and with a satisfying thwack, the metal wedge split the log in front of him.  Picking up the largest of the pieces, he tapped the wedge into it again, and brought the hammer behind his back, up over his shoulder, and with another thwack, the log was in small enough pieces to put in the stack. 

"Dalt!"  The urgency in Anja's voice cut through him and he turned, shifting the heavy hammer to his other hand, ready to use it as a weapon if he had to.

There was no need.  The heavy grey horse they had sold to the two runaway slaves and their strange fey companion had come home, looking bedraggled and in need of a brushing, but no worse for the ride. 

Dalt clucked his tongue, and the old stud came over to snuffle at his hand, looking for a treat or bit of salt. 

Dalt's brown eyes glanced over, and met Anja's.  They needed no words to know what the other thought.  _They didn't make it._  With a sigh, he put down his tools and led the horse back to its small corral. 


	24. 24

Drizzt led Brionne back down the tunnels, back to the room with the shattered arch where he himself had awoken just a few hours ago. 

"Alustriel must return soon," Drizzt explained, "And we can leave with her to Silverymoon.  You'll be more comfortable there.  For now, you should take what rest you can."  He reached out, touching along the back of Brionne's neck, feeling the thrill of being allowed so simple a thing. 

Guenhyvar padded at their side, her black tail flicking back and forth as she walked.

"It _was_ a long day." Brionne murmured, no longer trying to convince Drizzt that he wasn't tired. 

With gentle hands, Drizzt tucked his lover into the makeshift bed, throwing his own cloak over him for extra warmth.  It had been spring in Brionne's world, and neither he nor Nala was dressed for the winter chill here.

Brionne gazed up at him.  "There is so much I want to tell you.  So much I want to say..."

Drizzt smiled gently down at him.  "We will have time, I promise you."

Guenhyvar settled herself against his back, and they both smiled.  "She'll keep you warmer," Drizzt said, happiness lighting his eyes.  The big cat snuffled at Brionne's hair, and then started grooming the dried blood out of his hair like an over-sized tabby with her kitten. 

Brionne laughed and tried to pull away, but she plopped one huge paw on his chest and went on with her work as if he hadn't protested.  "Can you do nothing to help me?" he asked Drizzt, the light of the torch flickering in his eyes. 

"I'm afraid you're trapped," the ranger informed him with a grin.  Guenhyvar finished her work and resettled behind the young man. 

"Rest now," Drizzt suggested.  "I'll stay with you for a while." 

Dark lashes closed over silvery eyes, fluttering over the fine cheeks before going still.  Drizzt ran a hand over Brionne's back, his shoulder.  He continued the comforting caress down the arm that had been so painfully bruised.  There was no flicker of pain over the beautiful features, and he hadn't reacted to Guen cleaning his head-wound.

He regarded the bruised eye again.  _He was given a healing potion, and then struck afterwards._  The thought brought Drizzt a sick feeling in his guts. 

"Elf, there's some things that need sayin'."  The dwarf's voice was low and worried.

"There certainly are," Drizzt replied, moving to his feet, to follow Bruenor out of Brionne's hearing.

-----------------------------

Lord Relder dined alone at his long formal table, or at least went through the motions.  A feast was spread out before him; pheasant, quail, venison; all delicacies in a seaport city.  The meat had cooled an hour ago, grease congealing on the plates, yet he hadn't taken a bite.  A full goblet of wine rested at his right hand, untouched by his pale thin lips.   A servant stood on either side of his chair, ready to offer a napkin or refill his glass.  Neither had been required to perform their assigned task for a handful of days.

He knew he was weakening.  Sleep was eluding him with vicious skill.  Food, wine, it all tasted like ashes in his mouth.  Losing the whore had been the end of his rival; losing the whore would be the end of Relder too, if he couldn't get him back before the last of his strength left him.

A figure moved in the flickering candlelight at the far end of the dining table.  Relder ceased his idle rubbing at the ache in his left arm and stared for a moment. 

Brionne's slender build.  Brionne's subtle arrogance, that put such a fire into him.  Relder's heart pounded like a drum in his head.  Dark hair slid against fair skin as the figure came closer.  Brionne, his Brionne, come back to him, returned to be his.   

He felt dizzy.  The room shifted in his vision, a ship on an invisible sea. 

He blinked and Brionne, his Brionne, had crossed the room and was bowing in front of him. 

Only Brionne never bowed, at least not in front of common household servants.  Not when they were alone together.  It was part of his charm, that he treated Relder as an equal; that he enjoyed serving him.  At least he had until the day he took the girl Relder bought to match him and abandoned him. 

And the man's hair was not the cool jet color of Brionne's, but a common dark brown.  And he wasn't wearing the sleek silks that Brionne favored, but was instead clothed in tired wool and linen.  Dust covered him in a fine layer.  He had a missive in one hand, extended out to Relder, waiting with a servant's patience for the lord to take it from him.

Relder took the note, unfolded it and read the words it contained, written in a hand he did not recognize.  His chest ached.  The words made no sense.  He closed his eyes a moment, seeking inner peace.  He tried to calm himself enough to read the words, but still their meaning eluded him. 

_They are gone, all gone.  Forgive me, I have failed my mistress.  She is gone, with the slaves and the terrible Fey. _

He ached.  Gods how he ached.  And the room was moving again, the floor rising, striking him.  His chest burned, and the flickering candles grew dim.

-----------------------------

"I saw ye kissin' that boy, don't ye try to deny it."  The dwarf's voice was gruff and his face red. 

"I will not deny it," Drizzt replied, his own voice tight, controlled.  "Nor will I deny him."  _At least not to my friends, _he thought to himself.  The idea of someone like Entreri using Brionne as a hostage left him cold.

"Is this some Drow thing ye never told me about, or did he put some spell on ye?"

Drizzt sighed, his anger growing.  "It is no spell, and it is not a custom of my homeland.  I want to be with him.  He wants to be with me."

"But why?"  The dwarf blurted.  "Why turn down me own good daughter for that boy?  She'd have ye in a minute.  Just say the word and she'd have ye, even now."

"This isn't about her, it's about me." Drizzt returned.  "I care for her, she is my friend, but I would never make a good husband for her."

"But you'd make a good husband to that...that..."  Bruenor bit off the end of what he was going to say.  Drizzt's lavender eyes narrowed dangerously. 

"That what?"

"Whore."  Bruenor met Drizzt's eyes, unashamed.  "That woman named him a whore and a murderer."

Drizzt's anger left him in a rush.  _He's trying to protect me,_ he realized. 

"That woman also wounded one of your dwarves and ran into the night,"  he reminded him.

"I'm not hearin' you say she lied."

Drizzt shook his head.  "I just do not believe he would kill for any reason less than I would kill for.  I've seen him fight in his own defense once, and he didn't finish the man when he could."

"And the other thing?" 

"He was a slave, Bruenor.  I do not know what he has done, but whatever he did to stay safe, and alive, I cannot fault him for."  His tone left no room for questions.

"Can he love ye?"  The dwarf's anger seemed to be fading too, his concern coming to the forefront. 

"I have to believe that," Drizzt said, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder.   "If I can believe a Drow is worthy of being loved, how could I break both of our hearts by turning him away?  The risk is mine, and the rewards as well.  It is a gamble I gladly take."

"Fine then."  The dwarf grumbled, accepting it, or seeming to. 

"Now,"  Drizzt began, steeling himself to listen to what could not be pleasant to hear, "About his eye..."

---------------------------------


	25. fini

--------------------------------

"Brionne?"  Catti-brie watched as Nala woke the young man.  They were so similar it was eerie.  They looked like twins, though Nala had told her they weren't related, and that over a decade separated their births.

"Nala?"  He murmured as he sat up, bringing Drizzt's cloak up with him.  His eyes flicked to Catti-brie, meeting hers without fear, without anger.  "Catti-brie," he greeted her, politeness and a hint of welcome in his voice. 

The red-haired woman met his eyes as he gathered Nala's shivering form into the cloak with him.  She wanted to tell him she was sorry, that she wanted for Drizzt to be happy, that she never should have struck him.  The apology stuck in her throat, and the compassion in his eyes said that he understood, and that she was forgiven.

He held out a hand to her, and she took it without a word.  With the slightest tug, he drew her down, to join them in the warmth of Drizzt's cloak.

For what seemed a long while, she just leaned into the comfort that they offered.   Brionne stroked her back in slow reassuring motions.  Their closeness, it was a type of physical affection she was unused to, tender and generous.  If Brionne had been this way with Drizzt, she could understand a little why the stoic ranger had opened up to the young man.

"If ye treat him bad, I'll have to be killin' ye."  Her voice was so matter of fact, yet muffled by being pressed against his shoulder, and she knew it sounded childish and silly.

"No force in this world could make me treat him ill." 

She looked up to meet his eyes, studying them for long moments.  There was an honesty there, a strength and determination that she was beginning to trust.

She wanted to make sure that he understood how often Drizzt had been hurt, how he had been betrayed by his family, who should have treated him better; how it cut him when complete strangers distrusted him or children ran in fear.  She wanted to tell him how deeply Drizzt feared his friends being hurt because of him, that he had walked back into the Underdark to sacrifice himself, thinking it would make them safer.

But those were Drizzt's secrets, and his stories, and she wouldn't be the one to betray his confidence. 

With a soft sigh she hugged him.  He stroked her hair.  Nala nuzzled her cheek against Catti-brie's shoulder. 

-------------------------------

Drizzt found them like that, snuggled close like a pile of kittens.  He stood for a moment in the arch of the passage, taking in the sight.  He had come here still confused and worried over what Catti-brie had done, that she had struck a helpless prisoner.  The sight of the three so close, so clearly not suffering any lasting anguish over the slip did much to ease his mind. 

He made an intentional scuff sound with his boot against the rock, and three pairs of eyes turned to him; two silver, one blue.  Catti-brie straightened out of Brionne's arms, embarrassed and blushing.  Brionne let her pull away.  Amusement danced in his eyes, but there was tenderness there too.

Drizzt walked over, settling himself behind Brionne, motioning for Catti-brie to stay where she was if she wanted to.

"Alustriel is here."  He told Brionne.  "She says there is no way back through the portal.  She cannot relocate the land where I met you.  The portal shattered and took it's secrets with it."  He sighed.  "I am sorry for the choices you are no longer able to make."

Brionne nodded, dark hair falling over his eyes for a moment.  "It was not your doing, and truly, if not for you and for your friends, Nala and I would be walking in chains back to our master by now, if not dead in the forest."

"I've spoken to Alustriel about your..."  he brushed his fingers across the network of fine lines permanently marked into the skin of the young man's throat.  He would not name it, not here in front of Catti-brie. "She believes she can help you, given time.  There is no other that I trust with this task, who has the power to accomplish it, but the choice is yours."

The slightest flicker of uncertainty moved behind Brionne's eyes.  "I will heed your advice, but how can I ever repay her for such a boon?"

Drizzt smiled and kissed his forehead, his face hidden over his lover's by a curtain of snow-colored hair.  "She is my friend.  She does this because you are my friend, and because you do not deserve this curse." 

He moved to his feet, helped the women up, then offered his hand to Brionne.  The smooth pale fingers slipped into his dark sword-calloused ones like they were made to fit.

"Will you come with me?"  Drizzt could not find it in his heart to laugh at the insecurity in the usually strong young man.

"Of course." 

"Brionne?"  Nala's voice was soft, and interrupted their staring at each other in wonder.  They turned to look at her.

"I spoke with Catti-brie.  She has offered to keep me as a guest in her home for a time." 

Confusion and distress moved on Brionne's features, so fast that Drizzt was not sure he even saw it before it was gone.  Nala took one of Brionne's hands in both of hers.  "For a time." She repeated, seeing something still in the silver eyes that Drizzt could not.  "I am needed there."  Her eyes moved the slightest bit towards Catti-brie.  "I will be safe, and she is in need of a friend."

Brionne reached out to touch Nala's face, and nodded.  "Be well, sister of my heart."

---------------------------

Drizzt could not help the warm smile that graced his features as Brionne greeted Alustriel as the head of state that she was, and Alustriel greeted Brionne as the lover of her friend.  The young man's eyes were just the slightest bit wide as the lady of Silverymoon clasped his hands in hers, and placed a chaste kiss on his cheek.  Otherwise he showed not a bit of the shock he must be feeling.  His poise seemed perfect, his respectful bow low and formal, his facial expressions polite.

Alustriel had taken the news of their relationship well, and he had been grateful for her unquestioning support.  In his mind, he went through the list of people that he trusted enough to share this secret.  He was equal parts appalled and relieved how short it was.  Appalled that he had so few close friends in his life, but relieved that he would not have to risk receiving an angrily protective reaction like Bruenor's or a hurt one like Catti-brie's very many more times.

"...With us?"  Alustriel asked, and he realized he had been daydreaming.  Her smile was warm and understanding as she caught his puzzled expression.  "Are you coming with us?"  She repeated for his benefit.

He smiled and nodded, taking Brionne's hand in his.  He could feel the pulse in the young man's wrist, stronger and faster than his calm appearance would suggest.  A calm, mild smile was on the graceful lips.  _I will remember that smile, _he thought, watching as it didn't waver, even as his lover's steps became more fearful, more wooden as they came closer to Alustriel's flaming chariot.  "It will not hurt you," he whispered, and felt his hand squeezed in reply. 

Alustriel gathered the reins in her hand as Drizzt and Brionne joined her in the chariot. 

Drizzt wrapped warm arms around Brionne, feeling the pounding of his heart beneath his fine-muscled chest.  As the fiery horses took flight, Drizzt hugged him tight, and watched as Brionne smiled with delight. 

With Brionne in his arms, Drizzt watched as the lights of Silverymoon came into sight.  He was reminded of the sight of his first dawn, watching it alone after the long journey from the Underdark.  Brionne's future now was no more certain than his had been then.  _But_, he mused, enjoying the feel of the man in his arms, _at least he will not be facing it alone._

The end...for now.

----------------

A/N: Well, that's the end of my first novel-length fanfic.  Hope you all enjoyed. 

I've got a few short stories rattling around in my head that I want to get out, then I'm going to go back and revise "Run," so if you have any feedback, any feedback at all, please feel free to give it.  I will consider them all as I do the second draft.  Was there something you thought was silly?  Were RAS's characters pretty much in character? Did you like the scenes with Drizzt and Brionne better when it was from Drizzt's point of view or Brionne's? If you were recommending it to a friend, what would you tell them about it?  

After that, I'm planning a sequel, but it will probably be a few months before I'm ready to start posting it.  Also, I may tack on a little bonus lemon to this piece sometime this week, since Drizzt and Brionne got so little "alone-time" here. 

Thanks so much to those who reviewed it.  Your encouragement was very helpful in keeping me motivated. 

-Janelly


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